Kyrgyzstan’s intelligence agency initiates investigation into attack on Chinese Embassy

A suspected suicide bomber on Tuesday crashed a vehicle through the entrance of the Chinese Embassy in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek, detonating a bomb that killed the attacker and wounded embassy employees. The bomber’s identity has yet to be uncovered, with the country’s state security service already having launched an investigation into the matter.

The man gained access to the compound by ramming through the gates, before the vehicle exploded approximately 160 feet inside.

A Kyrgyz senior security officer told Xinhua news agency that it was a suicide auto bombing attack.

Attacks on Chinese missions overseas are rare but in 2015, an Islamist militant attack on a hotel in Mali killed three Chinese citizens, and in Pakistan, Chinese workers have occasionally been targeted by what police say are nationalists opposed to China’s plan to invest tens of billions of dollars in a new trade route to the Arabian Sea.

A Kyrgyz police officer gestures outside gates to the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. “China’s Foreign Ministry immediately activated its emergency response plan, and has requested that the Kyrgyz side immediately implement whatever measures it can to ensure the safety of Chinese institutions and citizens in Kyrgyzstan and quickly investigate into the truth behind this incident and severely punish those responsible”. Razakov said the bomber died and three embassy employees, all Kyrgyz nations, were injured.

Kyrgyzstan’s government, in a statement, called the attack “a terrorist act”.

Chinese officials in the country have previously beentargeted, with one shot dead in 2000 in an attack blamed onradicals from China’s Uighur minority.

Local residents said that the blast had shattered windows and shook their houses. Preliminary data has revealed he was a member of the Turkic ethnic group Uighurs, who predominantly live in Central and Eastern Asia.

Body parts thought to be from the attacker were foundseveral hundred metres from the blast site, a source said.

Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack.

More recently, in 2014, as China came under scrutiny for its crackdown on the Uighur population, 11 Uighur men were killed trying to cross into Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan is gearing up to mark 25 years of independence from the Soviet Union with celebrations in Bishkek to be held today.