He may not have even seen the next moment, when he immortalized CCTV, when the woman in the veil, dressed in traditional clothes and facing the opposite vehicle, took a small step to the side and fired the bag full of explosives she was holding. The video shows the suicide bomber, identified as Shari Baloch, a 31-year-old mother of two, disappearing instantly into a flame ball that broke the minibus. Four passengers were killed, including three Chinese nationals on their way to teach Chinese at Karachi University’s Confucius Institute. A security guard was seen after an explosion near the entrance of the Confucius Institute at Karachi University, Pakistan [File: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters] The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a banned group fighting for the independence of Pakistan’s troubled Balochistan province, took immediate responsibility. It often targets Chinese staff. In an email to Al Jazeera, the group said: “The mission was carried out by the first female fidagine (witness) of the Brigade.” “The director and officials of the Confucius Institute, the symbol of Chinese economic, cultural and political expansion, were to send a clear message to China that its direct or indirect presence in Baluchistan would not be tolerated,” the email added. In a statement, the BLA warned China to immediately stop what it called its “exploitation projects” in Pakistan. Otherwise, the group warned, hundreds of its “highly trained male and female members” are ready to carry out “tougher” attacks in the future.
The first female BLA suicide bomber
The Majeed Brigade, the BLA wing responsible for organizing suicide attacks, said it was their first operation by a woman. The arrival of a female suicide bomber has alarmed Pakistani security analysts, who say the attack demonstrates the “ruthless radicalization” of separatists who have been waging a bloody uprising for more than 20 years. Until recently, Baloch separatists denounced suicide bombings, especially by women. They consider themselves secular nationalists and have little in common with Muslim militant groups, such as the Pakistani Taliban, who have long used suicide bombings extensively. Mohammad Amir Rana, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the Baloch insurgency increasingly resembled Peru’s Shining Path – a left-wing militant group known for its brutal methods of attack. The top leaders of the Peruvian group often cite examples of revolutionaries such as Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela and Bagat Singh while talking about resistance movements. They also denounce religious extremism. “The team [BLA] “He is not worried about the use of operational tactics used by Islamist militant groups, as long as he fulfills the purpose,” Rana told Al Jazeera. Shari Baloch with her husband and children whose faces are blurred [Courtesy of Haibatan Baloch] Shari Baloch is emblematic of how the separatist movement, once ruled by tribal leaders, is dominated by the often highly educated Balochistan middle-class professionals. According to a document leaked to Al Jazeera by one of Pakistan’s security services, Baloch was a schoolteacher with a master’s degree in zoology. At the time of the explosion, he was enrolled in another graduate program at Karachi University. Baloch’s husband is a dentist and professor at Makran Medical College in southern Balochistan. Her father is a retired civil servant who worked as a secretary at the University of Turbat, her hometown. Her three brothers are a doctor, deputy director of a government-funded project and a civil servant. One of her five sisters teaches English at Turbat University. Her uncle is a retired professor, famous writer, poet and human rights activist. At least two of her relatives are known to have taken part in the armed conflict in Balochistan.
Against Chinese investment
There have been five insurgency movements in Baluchistan since Pakistan’s independence in 1947. Today, which began in 2000, is the largest. The battles have killed thousands. Many people suspected of supporting the insurgency have been “disappeared” by Pakistani security forces. In 2018, the leader of the Balochistan Nationalist National Party (BNP), Akhtar Mengal, presented a list of 5,000 alleged victims of enforced disappearances in the government of then-Prime Minister Imran Khan. However, Mengal parted ways with the Tehreek-e-Insaf Khan’s coalition government two years later, accusing it of failing to find the missing. Baloch nationalists oppose China investing in major roads, power plants in the region and in the port of Guadarou in the Arabian Sea. They accuse Beijing of looting and deprivation of its resources without providing benefits to the people of the region. The BLA also accuses China of not only helping Pakistan but stepping up its fight against insurgents by providing equipment to the Pakistani military. The separatists fear that the wave of investment will encourage people from other parts of Pakistan to move to the province, making them a minority in their traditional countries. There have been a number of attacks on Chinese nationals in Karachi and Baluchistan in recent years. Prime Minister Sehbaz Sharif condemned the latest attack and visited the Chinese embassy in Islamabad to express his grief. “[This incident] “It will be investigated quickly and the country would set an example for the perpetrators behind this horrific attack,” he wrote on Twitter. The Prime Minister also instructed the authorities to increase the security of Chinese residents and institutions in Pakistan. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the Chinese embassy in Islamabad and met with Chinese Chancellor Pang Chunxue to express his sorrow and condolences over the deaths of Chinese nationals in the attack on Karachi University. pic.twitter.com/rzahc31q0o – Office of the Prime Minister (@PakPMO) April 26, 2022 Michael Kugleman, a US-based Pakistan expert, said China would not be delayed by such attacks. “China is willing to tolerate many risks in its investment strategy, including concerns about terrorism,” he said. “This horrific attack will not force China to pack its bags and leave Pakistan.”
“This is not the time to push for peace”
The Majeed Brigade is behind most recent suicide attacks in Pakistan, including an armed attack on the Chinese consulate in 2018 and a similar attack on the city’s stock market in 2020. The group was founded in 2011 and took its name from Abdul Majeed Baloch, who attempted to assassinate former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1974 for ordering a military operation against the Baloch nationalists a year earlier. Pakistani security forces killed Majeed before he could assassinate Bhutto. With an intense military crackdown on Balochistan rebels, security analysts believe the BLA is likely to refocus its operations in Karachi and make greater use of women fighters who can operate without suspicion. “It’s definitely the worst security situation China has faced in Pakistan since the late 2000s, but now the economic presence is much bigger and so much more at stake for both sides,” said Andrew Small, a China-based transatlantic expert. collaborator of the German Marshall. The Fund Asia program told Al Jazeera. Islamabad-based columnist Mosharraf Zaidi said the new government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif should turn to Baloch’s top politicians to try to work with the separatists. “The primary challenge to the wave of terrorism in Pakistan today is the need for the government to work with the Baloch separatists,” Zaidi told Al Jazeera. “There is no time not to push for peace.” The suicide attack by a Baloch woman has also sparked fears among other women in the community who are protesting in various Pakistani cities for the release of their loved ones who have been persecuted by Pakistani intelligence services. “This change in insurgency is frightening,” said Sammi Baloch, 23, the daughter of Deen Muhammad, a doctor who has been missing since mid-2009. Sammi was just 10 years old when her father was abducted from his clinic in Khuzdar district of Balochistan. He has since protested in Islamabad, Karachi and Quetta for his release. “The families of the missing are already on the radar. “Such an attack by a Baloch woman allows the Pakistani authorities to suppress peaceful women, who have been fighting peacefully for the safe recovery of their loved ones for many years,” he told Al Jazeera.
