Four armed men have attempted Monday, June 29, to enter in the Karachi stock Exchange, Pakistan, the financial capital of the country. The assailants arrived in a sedan in front of the building and threw a grenade before opening fire, according to the chief of police Karachi, Ghulam Nabi Memon. At least six people are dead including a police officer. The police characterized the attack as ” terrorist “. The events took place at around 10 p.m. local time, 5 pm GMT.
The foundation Edhi, the main relief organization in Karachi, has identified seven people dead and as many injured, stated to the Agence France-Presse its official Faisal Edhi. “Failed attempt on the stock Exchange of Pakistan” (PSX), commented an analyst, Mohammed Sohail, on Twitter. “The transactions take place smoothly and continue. The benchmark index PSX is one of the most efficient of Asia to this day. It is the resilience of Pakistan. “
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An attack claimed
The Balochistan liberation Army (BLA) has claimed on Twitter that the attack committed by elements of his “Brigade” Majeed “is a unit of fighters and suicide bombers, that it was a time” took control of the area.” She then shared a photo of four young men dressed in fatigues color sand and holding kalashnikov rifles in a desert landscape, according to the authors of “the suicide attack” of the day.
Bordering Afghanistan and Iran, Baluchistan is the largest and poorest province in Pakistan, despite its deposits of hydrocarbons and minerals. It is also the most unstable : an uprising of separatist violence and the islamists have made hundreds of deaths in recent years. The BLA is not his first attack against the symbols of what it sees as the plundering of its resources by Islamabad.
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This group has been referred to several times in the past few years chinese interests, while Beijing is investing heavily in Pakistan in the framework of the economic Corridor China-Pakistan (CTPC), including the deep water port of Gwadar (Balochistan) is the flagship. This project aims to link the western province of Xinjiang to the port of Gwadar. Many infrastructure – highways, power plants, hospitals, etc – must be built within this framework. The CTPC will give chinese products a direct access to the Arabian sea.
attacks exceptional
In may 2019, the BLA had attacked a luxury hotel overlooking the port of Gwadar, killing five dead and six wounded. In November 2018, he had claimed an attack on the consulate of China in Karachi by armed men. The attack on the Karachi stock Exchange comes ten days after a grenade was launched in the city on a queue in front of a welfare office, killing one person and injuring eight others.
After a decade of bloody, during which the attacks were daily, the violence is very sharply in Pakistan. Such attacks are the exception when they were previously the norm. The port city of Karachi, which for years has been plagued by a high crime rate, is now far more secure after a takeover of the territory by the security forces.
