Three suicide bombers attacked the Chinese consulate in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi early on Friday, but were killed before entering the building, the city's police chief said.

Iran PressAsia: At least two police officers were killed in the attack, which was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an ethnic insurgent group that said it opposes Chinese exploitation of natural resources in the country's southwest. It also describes itself as the Balochistan Liberation Army.

According to Reuters, all Chinese staff at the consulate are safe, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan ordered an inquiry into the incident.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, "China strongly condemns any violent attacks against diplomatic agencies and requests that Pakistan takes practical measures to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and institutions in the country."

China is ploughing billions of dollars in loans and infrastructure investments into the South Asian nation as part of Beijing's vast Belt and Road initiative.

India also condemned the consulate attack, saying there was no justification for such violence.

"The perpetrators of this heinous attack should be brought to justice expeditiously," the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In another attack in Pakistan, at least 17 people were killed.

A powerful bomb blast ripped through a busy market outside a religious seminary in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, killing at least 17 people and over 30 others, officials said. 
The explosive material was planted in the Friday Market (Juma Bazar) in Aurakzai tribal district's Kalaya area. 

Violence in Pakistan has however dropped significantly since the country's deadliest-ever militant attack, an assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them children.

Pakistan's military intensified operations against militants in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan in the wake of that attack, leading to dramatic security improvements.101/202

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