PESHAWAR, Pakistan, March 26, 2024 (AFP) -Five Chinese nationals working on a major dam construction site were killed along with their driver on Tuesday when a suicide bomber targeted their vehicle in northwest Pakistan, police said. Islamabad is Beijing’s closest regional ally, but the security of Chinese workers has long been of concern in Pakistan. “Five Chinese and their local driver were killed in the attack,” Muhammad Ali Gandapur, a senior police official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told AFP. He said the vehicle was travelling from the Dasu hydroelectric dam site, under construction by the China Gezhouba Group Company, towards the capital Islamabad when the bombing happened near Besham city. The attack occurred on a mountainous road that overlooks a deep ravine. In 2021 a bus carrying engineers to the same construction site was hit by a bomb, killing 13 people including nine Chinese workers. Tuesday’s attack comes days after security forces killed at least seven militants as they attempted to storm the offices of Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan, considered a cornerstone of Chinese investment. Beijing has poured billions of dollars into Pakistan in recent years to boost the country’s infrastructure, including under its “Belt and Road” initiative which has seen it ink two $2 trillion in contracts around the world. But Chinese-funded projects have sparked resentment, particularly among separatist groups, who say locals see little benefit, with most jobs going to outsiders. In 2019, gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Balochistan province overlooking the flagship Chinese-backed deep-water seaport in Gwadar that gives strategic access to the Arabian Sea — killing at least eight people. And in June 2020, Baloch insurgents targeted the Pakistan Stock Exchange, which is partly owned by Chinese companies, in the commercial capital of Karachi. —