The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) On Tuesday Claimed Responsibility For The Killing Of Four People

The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a Karachi university in southern Pakistan. The BLA said the attacker was a female suicide bomber.

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the killing of four people, including three Chinese nationals, in a suicide attack on a Karachi university.

The BLA is a militant group operating mainly in the province of Balochistan, which previously targeted Chinese citizens and interests.

The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a university in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. The BLA said the attacker was a female suicide bomber.

The group that followed the attack identified the bomber as Shari Baloch or Bramsh, who said she was the first female bomber in the group. The attack "marks a new chapter in the history of the Baloch resistance," the statement said.

Earlier, the BLA had launched an attack targeting Chinese nationals. Balochistan has been the scene of low-level insurgency by armed Baloch groups demanding greater autonomy and greater share of the region's natural resources, if not complete independence from Islamabad.

This is the first major attack on Chinese civilians in Pakistan since the July 2021 bus bombing that killed nine Chinese civilians in northwestern Dasu. However, the Baloch militants did not claim responsibility for the attack. The Pakistani Taliban - also known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan - claimed responsibility for the attack. Four Pakistanis were killed in the attack.

Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon said a preliminary investigation had revealed that a suicide bomber was behind the attack. He said closed-circuit television footage from the site showed a woman wearing a burqa walking into the van, followed by an instant explosion.

Chinese deaths include the director and two teachers of the Chinese-made Confucius Institute, which offers Chinese language degree classes.

Thousands of Chinese workers live and work in Pakistan, most of whom are involved in Beijing's multi-billion-dollar project to connect South-Central Asia with the so-called "One Belt One Road Project".

A major road connecting Gwadar, the southern port of Pakistan in southwestern Balochistan province, with China's northwestern Xinjiang province is part of what is known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The project includes several infrastructure projects and several power projects.