It is doubtful that the minibus driver paid any attention to the inconspicuous woman on the side of the road as he drove his vehicle into the entrance of Karachi’s Chinese Cultural Center on Tuesday.
He may not have even seen the next moment, captured on CCTV, when the veiled woman, dressed in traditional attire and facing the oncoming vehicle, took a tiny step to the side and the explosive-laden bag she was clutching detonated.
The video shows the suicide bomber, identified as Shari Baloch, a 31-year-old mother of two, immediately disappearing in a ball of flames tearing through the van.
Four passengers were killed, including three Chinese nationals who were en route to teach Chinese at Karachi University’s Confucius Institute.
A security guard after an explosion near the entrance of the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi, Pakistan [File: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters]
The attack was quickly claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a banned group fighting for independence in Pakistan’s troubled Balochistan province. It often targets Chinese personnel.
In an email to Al Jazeera, the group said: “The mission was carried out by the brigade’s first female fidayeen (martyr).”
“The targeting of the director and officials of the Confucius Institute, the symbol of China’s economic, cultural and political expansionism, should send a clear message to China that its direct or indirect presence in Balochistan will not be tolerated,” the email added added.
In its statement, the BLA warned China to stop its “exploitation projects” in Pakistan immediately. Otherwise, the group warned, hundreds of its “highly skilled male and female members” would be ready to mount “tougher” attacks in the future.
BLA’s first female suicide bomber
The Majeed Brigade, the BLA wing tasked with organizing suicide bombings, said it was their first-ever operation performed by a woman.
The arrival of a female suicide bomber has alarmed Pakistan’s security analysts, who say the attack shows the “ruthless radicalization” of the separatists, who have been waging a bloody rebellion for more than 20 years.
Until recently, the Baloch separatists denounced suicide bombings, particularly by women.
They see themselves as secular nationalists and have little in common with Muslim armed groups like Pakistan’s Taliban, which have long engaged in extensive suicide bombing.
Mohammad Amir Rana, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the rebellion in Baloch is increasingly resembling Peru’s Shining Path – a left-wing armed group known for using brutal attack methods.
The top leaders of the Peruvian group often cite examples of revolutionaries like Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela and Bhagat Singh while discussing resistance movements. They also denounce religious extremism.
“The group [BLA] has no worries about using the operational tactics of the Islamist militant groups as long as they serve 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 led by tribal chiefs, is now dominated by the often highly educated middle-class professionals of Balochistan.
According to a document provided to Al Jazeera by one of Pakistan’s security agencies, Baloch was a school teacher with a master’s degree in zoology. When she blew herself up, she was enrolled in another postgraduate program at the University of Karachi.
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 registrar at the University of Turbat, her hometown.
Her three brothers are a doctor, deputy director of a government-sponsored project, and civil servant. One of her five sisters teaches English at Turbat University.
Her uncle is a retired professor, well-known author, poet and human rights activist.
It is known that at least two of her relatives took part in the armed struggle in Balochistan.
Unlike Chinese investments
Since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, there have been five insurgency movements in Balochistan. The current one, which began in 2000, is the longest.
The fighting has killed thousands. Many people suspected of supporting the rebellion have been illegally “disappeared” by Pakistani security forces.
In 2018, the leader of the ethnonationalist Balochistan National Party (BNP), Akhtar Mengal, submitted a list of 5,000 alleged victims of enforced disappearances to the then government of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
However, Mengal split from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led coalition government two years later, blaming them for failing to locate the missing persons.
The Baloch nationalists oppose China investing heavily in the Arabian Sea’s roads, power plants and Gwadar port. They accuse Beijing of looting it and stealing its resources without benefiting local residents.
The BLA also accuses China of not only supporting Pakistan, but also strengthening it in its fight against rebels by providing equipment to the Pakistani military.
The separatists fear the investment wave will encourage people from other parts of Pakistan to move to the province and make them a minority in their ancestral lands.
Karachi and Balochistan have seen a spate of attacks on Chinese nationals in recent years.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the latest attack and visited the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad to express his sorrow. “[This incident] would be promptly investigated and the country would make an example of those responsible for this horrific attack,” he tweeted.
The prime minister also directed the authorities to increase security for Chinese residents and institutions in Pakistan.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad and met with Chinese Charge d’Affaires Ms. Pang Chunxue to express his sadness 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 deterred by such attacks.
“China is willing to tolerate many risks in its investment strategy, including terrorism concerns,” he said. “This horrific attack will not make China pack its bags and leave Pakistan.”
“No time not to push for peace”
The Majeed Brigade is behind most of the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, including an armed attack on the Chinese consulate in 2018 and a similar attack on the city’s stock exchange in 2020.
The group was formed in 2011 and named after Abdul Majeed Baloch, who tried 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 the rebels in Balochistan, security analysts believe the BLA is likely to refocus its energies on Karachi and make more use of female fighters who can operate without raising suspicion.
“It is certainly the worst security situation China has faced in Pakistan since the late 2000s, but now the economic presence is far greater and therefore the stakes are far higher for both sides,” Andrew Small, China expert and transatlantic collaborator at German Marshall Fund Asia program, Al Jazeera said.
Islamabad-based columnist Mosharraf Zaidi said Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s new government should reach out to mainstream Baloch politicians to try to deal with the separatists.
“The biggest challenge of the terror wave in Pakistan today is the need for the government to deal with separatists from the Baloch Belt,” Zaidi told Al Jazeera.
“There is no time not to press for peace.”
The suicide attack by a Baluch woman has also sparked fear among other women in the community who have been protesting in various cities in Pakistan for the release of their loved ones who have been kidnapped by Pakistani intelligence services.
“This postponement of the uprising is frightening,” said Sammi Baloch, 23, daughter of Deen Muhammad, a doctor who has been missing since mid-2009.
Sammi was only ten years old when her father was kidnapped from his clinic in Khuzdar district of Balochistan. Since then she has been protesting in Islamabad, Karachi and Quetta for his release.
“Families of missing persons are already under the radar. Such an attack by a Baloch woman allows the Pakistani authorities to repress peaceful women who have been fighting peacefully for the safe recovery of their loved ones for many years,” she told Al Jazeera.