KARACHI: Pakistan on Thursday condemned the killing of three Chinese workers in a militant attack in Tajikistan near the Afghan border, expressing solidarity with Beijing and Dushanbe and warning that the incident underscored the escalating regional threat posed by militant groups operating from Afghanistan.
The Chinese nationals were working for a gold-extraction company in southern Tajikistan when they were targeted in an attack that Tajik authorities say was carried out from across the border with Afghanistan. Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement the assault targeted a compound belonging to Shohin SM, a private gold-mining company operating in the Shamsiddin Shohin district along the Tajik–Afghan frontier.
Tajikistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban government have engaged in a flurry of diplomacy in recent months to ease tensions and prevent armed clashes along their long, shared border. Beijing and Dushanbe have also expanded security cooperation in recent years due to concerns over cross-border militancy and instability spilling over from Afghanistan. China has thousands of workers deployed across Central and South Asia on infrastructure and mining projects, making them frequent targets of terror groups.
