Map of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.
Advertisement
Authorities said the country faces the threat of attacks from the Islamic State group after about 500 Kyrgyz left to fight for the group in Iraq and Syria.
It was not immediately clear whether the incident will also trigger heightened security measures by Chinese authorities in the nation’s northwest, which is home to the mainly Muslim Uighur Autonomous Region.
The man gained access to the compound by ramming through the gates, before the auto exploded approximately 160 feet inside.
The bombing has raised questions as to why the Chinese embassy, which is located near the US embassy, was targeted by the attacker, who has not been identified but who Kyrgyz officials have labeled a “terrorist”.
Officials from both countries described the assault as a terrorist act.
It strongly condemned the auto bombing, and required Kyrgyzstan to “take immediate and necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese people and institutions”, according to Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.
Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev ordered a “thorough investigation”.
Kyrgyz police sources put the strength of the blast at an equivalent of up to 10 kilos of TNT, and one said body parts thought to be those of the attacker were found several hundred meters from the blast site.
According to the residents, the explosion was so loud that it made their houses go shake and crashed their windows. Police cordoned off the building and the adjacent area, and the state security service said they were investigating the bombing that occurred around 10am local time.
The Kyrgyz emergency service retrieved the Chinese embassy employees and those of American embassy nearby.
The interior ministry could not be reached for comment. It said it had been in touch with its embassy personnel in Bishkek and all were accounted for.
The authorities regularly announce that they have foiledattacks planned by the Islamic State group in the country. “So after the attack a large safety operation is conducted”, reported Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons from Bishkek.
In 2014, Kyrgyz border guards killed 11 people believed to be members of that group who had illegally crossed the Chinese-Kyrgyz border.
Chinese officials in Kyrgyzstan have previously been targeted, with one shot dead in 2000 in an attack blamed on radicals from the Uighur minority. Two Chinese nationals-a diplomat and a businessman-were shot dead in June 2002 as they traveled in a auto in the Kyrgyz capital, prompting local police to investigate suspected links to Uighur separatism.
Advertisement
Violence has plagued China’s northwestern region ofXinjiang, the homeland of the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnicminority, in recent years, sometimes spreading beyond it. Beijing has said that it offers the Uighurs a wide range of freedoms, including economic development, and it calls the separatists terrorists.
