A rare terror attack has unfolded at Pakistan’s strategic port city of Gwadar on Wednesday, which is crucial to the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A group of heavily armed militants stormed the complex and engaged in a lengthy firefight with security forces.
Pakistan authorities identified the attackers as Baloch separatists, which had also been armed with bombs. At least seven of the militants were shot dead by security forces. The port has for more than the past decade been run by the China Overseas Port Holding Company.
Pakistan’s Gwadar port authority complex, via India Today |
There are unconfirmed reports that a soldier may have died in the attack. “Attackers carried out many blasts,” government official Saeed Ahmed Umrani announced in the aftermath.
Few details have been given about how precisely the attack unfolded, but regional media has indicated that “Majeed Brigade of the proscribed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility
for the attack.” The group said it targeted Pakistan intelligence
offices. A heavy police and military presence responded to the port as
gunfire was still ringing out.
This southwestern region of the
Pakistani province of Balochistan (also the name of a region which
extends into Iran and Afghanistan) has been focus of heavy investment from China,
and despite Balochistan being well-known for its natural resources
including minerals, gas, and coal – the local population remains in
severe poverty.
Ethnic separatist and radical Islamic terrorist
organizations have for years waged a long-running insurgency against the
government and its foreign partners, accusing Islamabad of exploiting
the population of the region.
These groups have especially sought
to target infrastructure and projects of the CPEC, seeing in it further
confirmation that the Pakistan government is stealing from locals and
enriching itself off foreign investments.
There are reports of a complex attack on the #Gwadar Port Authority (GPA). Simultaneous explosions & firing have been heard in the area.
GPA hosts sensitive govt installations, including Gwadar port where #Chinese engineers are working to build Pakistan’s third largest port. pic.twitter.com/3p8o8iOLL8
— Kiyya Baloch (@KiyyaBaloch) March 20, 2024
There have been longstanding reports that China is seeking to establish more naval bases on Pakistan’s coast. One recent regional report details the following in Gwadar’s port:
Open-source satellite imagery analysis has detected Chinese complexes in Gwadar with “unusually high security”, the report said.
While security could easily have been increased in response to the
unsafe environs of Balochistan, which has seen a resurgence of
insurgency and terrorist attacks, a hardening of the Chinese facilities
could alternatively be an indicator of a covert militarized use of the port, akin to China’s apparent plans to secretly militarize its port facilities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
China
has long deployed security forces in order to protect these key
economic corridors of the One Belt One Road Initiative, commonly called
the Silk Road Economic Belt.
Location of Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, Google Maps |
A
theme of recent years has been Pakistan pivoting away from the US, both
financially, diplomatically and militarily, and all the while China is
only too happy to step in and fill the voids. Beijing is increasingly
not just expanding its economic reach abroad, but is planting military
bases along southern Asia and East Africa as well.
(Article by Tyler Durden republished from Zerohedge.com)
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Author: Planet Today
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