Salman Rafi Sheikh is assistant professor of politics at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Lahore University of Management Sciences.
On Oct. 6, two Chinese nationals working for a Karachi-based power company were killed near the city’s airport in a terrorist attack claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group seeking independence for Balochistan. In 2022, three Chinese teachers were killed in Karachi — the largest city in Pakistan — in a suicide bombing carried out by a female member of the BLA’s Majeed Brigade. The rise in such attacks indicates that Baloch militants have expanded their operational capabilities, enabling them to conduct sophisticated assaults against Chinese interests far beyond Balochistan.
