customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

knowledgeQuestion

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

An attack on a luxury hotel in the southwestern city of Gwadar was a bid to “sabotage prosperity”, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan said on Sunday, as police confirmed all the attackers had been killed.
Five people were killed on Saturday after gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the southwestern Pakistani city of Gwadar, the centrepiece of a multibillion-dollar Chinese infrastructure project.

A Baloch separatist group, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter.
“Such attempts especially in Balochistan are an effort to sabotage our economic projects and prosperity. We shall not allow these agendas to succeed,” Khan said in a statement issued by his office.
The Chinese embassy in Islamabad also strongly condemned the incident.
Local police said four gunmen who stormed the hotel were killed overnight by security forces.
“All four terrorists were killed and security forces had taken complete control of the hotel building,” said a local police official in Gwadar.
Mohammad Aslam, a police official in Gwadar, said on Saturday that only staff were in the hotel at the time of the attack.
The BLA is one of several insurgent groups fighting in tightly-guarded Balochistan province, which has been rocked by separatist, Islamist and sectarian violence for years.

The Pearl Continental, part of Pakistan’s largest five-star hotel chain, is the only luxury hotel in Gwadar, frequented by foreign and Pakistani business delegations as well as diplomats.
It sits isolated on a ridge overlooking the Arabian Sea port city that was formerly a small fishing village, but now touted by officials as “the next Dubai” thanks to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
China offers support for Pakistan counterterrorism efforts after Pulwama attack
Part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, CPEC seeks to connect the western Chinese province of Xinjiang with Gwadar, with the development of the port as the plan’s flagship project.
Gwadar will provide China with safer and more direct access to the oil-rich Middle East than the waterway trade route it currently uses through the narrow Malacca Strait.

But it has also drawn its share of attacks – particularly from separatists who have long complained that residents of Pakistan’s poorest and largest province do not receive a fair share of profits from its resources.
The BLA has targeted Chinese workers in Pakistan multiple times, including during a brazen daylight attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi which killed four people in November last year.
At the time, the BLA called Beijing “an oppressor”.

Balochistan is tightly guarded by the Pakistani military, who have been targeting insurgents there since 2004. The army has been repeatedly accused by international rights groups of abuses there, but denies all allegations.
The attack was the second deadly attack in a prominent Pakistan city this week, after a suicide blast claimed by the Pakistani Taliban at one of the country’s oldest and most popular Sufi shrines killed at least 12 people in the eastern city of Lahore.


At Pakistan’s pink palace, ghostly tales and TikTokkers complicate preservation

Pakistan envoy says China belt and road links growing despite terror attacks on projects

2 Indian soldiers killed days ahead of Kashmir polls

Bangladesh’s uprising offers lessons for Pakistan’s democracy

Pakistan

Attack on Pearl Continental hotel in belt and road port was bid to damage economy, says Pakistan PM Imran Khan

The Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar, Pakistan. File photo: Reuters

FILE - In this Friday Nov. 23, 2018 file photo, Pakistani security personnel move in the compound of Chinese Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. A Pakistani police officer says, Friday, Jan, 11, 2019, investigators have arrested five suspects on charges of helping a separatist group accused of attacking the Chinese Consulate in Karachi last year, killing two civilians and two police guards. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil, File)

A Pakistani security personnel walks next to a damage bus carrying Chinese engineers after a suicide attack in Dalbandin region, around 340 kilometres (211 miles) from Quetta, the capital of southwestern Balochistan province, on August 11, 2018. - A suicide attack on August 11 in Southwest Pakistan targeted a bus carrying Chinese engineers, wounding at least five people including two Chinese nationals, officials said. The attack came in Dalbandin region, around 340 kilometres (211 miles) from Quetta, the capital of southwestern Balochistan province, when the Chinese engineers working on a mineral project were being transported to the city. (Photo by Ali Raza / AFP)

epa07563490 A view of the coastal highway that leads to Gwadar, Balochistan, Pakistan, 20 April 2019 (issued 11 May 2019). Armed assailants attacked Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel in Gwadar, the conflict-ridden southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, that ended with at least four dead; the three assailants and a security guard. China has a major presence in Balochistan province, where it is financing a 60 billion dollar infrastructure project known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of China's larger Belt and Road Initiative that spans dozens of countries. EPA-EFE/STR

(190427) -- BEIJING, April 27, 2019 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken on Nov. 13, 2016 shows the COSCO Wellington cargo vessel with containers moored at Gwadar port, Pakistan. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan speaking at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in April. Photo: Reuters

Gwadar seaport holds key in China's energy search

A Pakistani soldier at the newly built Gwadar port. Photo: AP

Chinese firm takes control of Gwadar Port free-trade zone in Pakistan 

To go with story 'Pakistan-China-unrest-economy-port,FOCUS' by Jennie Matthew This photograph taken on February 12, 2013 shows the construction site at Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea. China's acquisition of a strategic port in Pakistan is the latest addition to its drive to secure energy and maritime routes and gives it a potential naval base in the Arabian Sea, unsettling India. AFP PHOTO/Behram BALOCH

Gwadar is a deep sea port that sits next to the Strait of Hormuz, the key oil route in and out of the Persian Gulf. Photo: AFP

Will Gwadar go the way of Hambantota? Why Chinese loans to Pakistan are sparking takeover fears along the economic corridor

President Xi Jinping of China welcomes Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, ahead of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, on May 13. Photo: Reuters

(171128) -- ISLAMABAD, Nov. 28, 2017 (Xinhua) -- Mushahid Hussain (2nd R), chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute, presents a medal to Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing (2nd L) during the 3rd China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Media Forum in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Nov. 27, 2017. Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing has said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is aimed at facilitating regional friendly cooperation and connectivity. The ambassador made the remarks on Monday at the third CPEC media forum jointly organized by the Chinese Embassy and the Pakistan-China Institute.  (Xinhua/Saadia Seher) (psw)

Xinjiang-Gwadar port economic corridor tops Pakistani leader's China agenda

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Photo: AP

News

Asia

South Asia

Five people were killed in the raid on the only luxury hotel in Gwadar, a hub in China’s vast infrastructure initiative


Five people were killed in the raid on the only luxury hotel in the city, which is a hub in China’s vast infrastructure initiative.


Belt and Road Initiative