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1 dead, 3 injured as blast hits near China Embassy in Kyrgyzstan

Tuesday, 30 August 2016 4:49 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 30 August 2016 11:31 AM ]

Smoke rises from the site of a blast in the vicinity of the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on August 30, 2016.

One person has been killed and three others have sustained injuries in a powerful explosion that rocked the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, media reports say.

China’s Xinhua News Agency, citing a Kyrgyz security official, said the blast was a “car bombing,” in which the driver was killed after he rammed his vehicle though mission’s gate on Tuesday morning.

Kyrgyz police sources said the explosives-laden vehicle went off in the middle of the compound near the Chinese ambassador’s residence.

The country’s Deputy Prime Minister Jenish Razakov said the injured were all Kyrgyz employees of Beijing’s mission.

Employees of the Chinese mission and those at the nearby US Embassy were immediately evacuated after the explosion.

The photo shows the aftermath of an explosion near the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, August 30, 2016.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the bombing at its embassy in Bishkek has been a "serious terrorist attack" vowing that China would "resolutely strike against all forms of terrorism."

Bishkek has in recent months announced numerous foiled terror attacks by Daesh-affiliated elements across the Central Asian state.

Last year, Kyrgyz security forces reported several deadly exchanges of fire with suspected Takfiri terrorists in the capital.

About 500 Kyrgyz national are believed to have joined the ranks of Daesh, mainly active in Iraq and Syria, according to the government.

This is not the first time Chinese officials come under attack in the ex-Soviet country.

In one of the incidents back in 2000, a Chinese official was shot dead, in an attack blamed on the ethnic Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, which borders eight countries including Kyrgyzstan.

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