Pakistani police escort ambulances carrying the coffins of foreign tourists as they come out from Chaklala air base in Rawalpindi on June 23, 2013. PHOTO: AFP
In a pre-dawn attack, gunmen dressed as paramilitary forces killed nine foreign tourists in an unprecedented attack in Gilgit-Baltistan. At least three Chinese and five Ukrainian climbers were killed in the attack on the base camp.
“The Foreign Ministry on Sunday strongly condemned a violent attack...that resulted in 11 deaths, including those of several Chinese tourists,” Xinhua reported.
The Chinese news report claimed only two Chinese nationals were killed in the incident.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s office said the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan was in close contact with Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry and military to further verify information related to the incident.
The embassy further requested Pakistan to make all efforts to take care of the survivors, apprehend the gunmen behind the attack and guarantee the safety of Chinese citizens in Pakistan.
_____________________________________________________________
[poll id="1150"]
COMMENTS (45)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
@Rex Minor
"The Chinese and the Talibans have one thing in common; they do not tolerate foreigners!!" "I am equally allergic to the foreigners...."
Couldn't agree more. West should learn from them, it's not yet late. West's liberal, enlightened but intellectually lazy policy of tolerance to the foreigners (read immigrants) from god forsaken places will bring their doom. If anything West should allow migration only within itself, all others should be banned.
We can give guarantee for the return of their dead bodies to China. GB is neglected area and tourism is only their main income. The Pakistan government should make good the loss suffered by GB because of mainland terrorists.
@anwar: Americans were out of this region after the fall of USSR yet Islamization flourished there and terrorists of the world congregated there. Their reach extended to the US. Arms are demanded by Pakistan army to ensure peace but they play a double game by supporting terrorists while taking dollars from Americans. Recognize the problem, don't look the other way. You cannot be a stooge and rebel at the same time. It doesn't work.
@Mir:
Islam is a religion of peace, but the followers of Islam are not pacifists. The rest of your rhetoric is a diversion.
Rex Minor
@Np: @ASD:
The chinese and the Talibans have one thing in common; they do not tolerate foreigners!! I am equaly allergic towards the foreigners who do not try to remove the trash in front of teir house but try to interfear in others domestic affairs.
Rex Minor.
Being a welfare state this is the Pakistan's first and foremost responsibility and duty to provide security to every foreigner/visitor in Pakistan not only to the Pakistani leaders and most especially importantly as Pakistan provides security to the US' citizens and diplomats and takes immediate actions and notices if any thing happens wrongful and harmful against US' citizens and diplomats in Pakistan.....
Pakistani Government cannot guarantee safety of its own citizens
Pakistan should give China the contract for securing human beings in Pakistan. I bet they will take care of the issue in couple of weeks which our armed forces don't even want to think about.
Only solution is to beg USA to increase done attacks and wipe out these so called TTP .. They cannot be Muslims. As Islam is the religion of piece. Wipe them out on the face of Pakistan.To survive Pakistan has no choice. Our government is impotent
@Timour: Well, Pakistani politicians, mullahs and military dictators have always resorted to this convenient ruse of blaming outsiders -- "a foreign hand" -- for whatever happens inside Pakistan. And Pakistanis, like fools, fall for such lies and diversionary tactics. Why don't Pakistanis have a healthy commonsense to question such nonsense they are asked to swallo? Pakistanis blame everyone else but themselves for all the mess they have created for themselves. Pakistan's very existence is based on a lie. Even though the local Talibanis have admitted to this heinous crime, the current bunch of politicians, like those before them, will continue to blame the "foreign hand". Why don't they come out (with evidence, of course) and identify who or what exactly is this foreign hand?! Meanwhile, you can say kiss goodbye to all your fantasy dream of ever getting foreign cricket teams to step on the soil of Pakistan, "the land of the pure" and "God's paradise", as one tourism brochure says.
Where is the article on: " Pakistani asks army/agencies to guarantee safety of their lives?". Chinese can take a number and wait in line behind us.
@umar:
"Its my request to the Chinese government to either pressure Pakistan to go out for an all-out offensive in North Waziristan or take the action themselves"
If you recall past history, the Chinese PM himself called Mushrraf to take action on the Lal Masjid activists who killed/attacked some Chinese. Remember what happened after that? Mush attacked Lal Masjid and killed hundreds of students there. That attack by Mush was the reason for the scores of reprisal militant attacks ever since. The TTP was born to take revenge for the Lal Masjid attack.
@AR Essazai:
"hinese, who had always been friend of Pakistan and their Foreign Policy has no prejudices for Muslims."
Actually, the Chinese have been very brutal with their Uighur Muslims in East Turkistan (Xinjiang). Dozens of thousands of Uighurs have been killed there by the Chinese army.
@Rex Minor: No sir you are not a foreigner. You belong to Waziristan. No one is fooled any more by your claims anymore than they are by antanu g
How can a country thay has so much potential sink to such low heights. It seems sanity has gone hay wire. If the issue of law and order is not tackled URGENTLY Pakistanis will leave the.nation in drib and drabs. Wake up You SO CALLED LEADERS!!
The only way to guarantee safety of anyone is to kick the Americans out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are the suppliers of weapons and Half Baked ideologies all over the world.
Pakistan can't guarantee the safety of its citizens.. How could anyone expect Foreign Nationals to be provided safety. We are going down the drain. Thanks tour Military Dictators we are enjoying our own music!
Chinese finally getting a taste of true Pakistan.
reason is simple that no one have ability to fight with them every governament is failed or they dont want to take action
We cannot guarantee our own citizens safety, how can we guarantee yours?...haha
I think that Government should immediately start dialogues with killers as proposed by our beloved leader Imran Khan in and outside Parliament
@Syed Jaffri China is extremely against Muslim extremists. They have some of the worst restrictions placed on ughiuyr Muslims in China. They will tolerate anything but taliban attacks. One of the major points of fraction between China and Pakistan is that Chinese think Pakistani tribal areas are infested with ughiuyr rebels who attack china and are trying to lead a Muslim separatist movement from there. Its not Nawaz.
@Zeeshan:
An excellent point. I am a foreigner too! Let the foreigners ask those for the vsa who operate Drone fleets in the country. Pakistan Governments should not be ashamed to go to the UNO and complain about their territory being violated by the foreigners! USA is one of the few which does not recognise the International Criminal court, otherwise many of their functionaries would be facing the justice.
Rex Minor
People of Diamer should seriously take it final wake up call.
It is not easy for any non-local to come or mingle with demographic settings of Gilgit-Baltistan. I bet, any non-local can be tracked within hours. It means these militants are regularly receiving local shelter. Earlier, Kohistan and Chilas carnage of passengers were highly denied by people of Diamer and opposed any military operation.
Now, business will not stay the same.
Other important thing, is if someone claims, these non-local militants of TTP came to base camp.....Ehsanullah and their leaders or their so-called coward fighters can't make it base camp...its a journey of at least a day for locally trained person/ climber to reach rug/ touch base camp area.....if so, then its again locals, who have joined banned outfits and carrying out these strikes....in addition, they can't escape easily from base camp.....it needs quick mobility and knowhow of area.....
If this practice continues, people of real G-B might say a farewell to all those , who wish to align with Kohistan/ FATA.....
Chinese tourists spend around $102 billion every year across the world. If Pakistani governments were not so pro-religious extremists all the time, a significant portion of that revenue could come to Pakistan in terms of Chinese tourists just having to cross the border to come over. Alas everyone is so much more interested in turning Pakistan into an Islamic Emarat as opposed to a prosperous republic.
Pakistan does not deserve a single tourist.
The key to solution is formulation of National Counter Terrorism strategy by all stakeholders giving a freehand to military to operationalise same with Intelligence agencies supportive role till conclusive results.The scourge has to be eliminated at all costs to save Pakistan.All this is repetition of opinion shared by different representatives at various forums.
@H. Khan: Someone is trying to embarrass the new government.
And that someone is the government itself. If you sleep with your enemy and are too afraid to take it on, you don't need someone else.
"Guarantee the safety of Chinese citizens"...hmmm so they don't care about the life of other people. To the Chinese: life is not a guarantee, especially no life in Pakistan is a guarantee.How can Pakistan guarantee only Chinese life? Does that mean the establishment have control over the jihadists on who they can and can't kill? So does that make it a rogue establishment? The smart thing would be to not have their respective citizens traveling to a place of turmoil. If they do visit then all bets are off.
Chinese are too much unhappy with pakistan and relation between them will deteriorate in future...
Chines slowly understanding True Pakistani "hospitality".
Why the tourist travel on the most unsafe place on earth !!
Its the new government itself that is trying to embarrass the new government by not taking stern action against Taliban.
Sympthatic to India. Does sympathy in Pakistan means backstabbing? like in cargill ?
I don't understand why people keep saying 'Someone is trying to embarrass" or "Hidden hands are behind it" when clearly the TTP have claimed responsibility in their regular phone update.
Furthermore, regardless of whether it is them on their own or whether someone is egging them on, the point is that they are the sharp end of the spear. We should actually use our ridiculously large defense budget to actually do something useful and destroy the TTP with all the force we can muster.
As the saying goes "Na rahey ga bans, na bajey gi bansri".
Pakistan can't guarantee security of its own citizens,,,foreigners and non Muslims are out of question.
No words to condemn this incident.... It has shocked every civilized citizen. Those who came here to explore the hidden beauty of Northern areas to world are sent back to their homes in coffins. They were guests. Where is our habitability? Did our peers ever treat their guests like this. At least this is not in our tradition. Killing an unarmed, foreigner guest is a coward activity. Specially Chinese, who had always been friend of Pakistan and their Foreign Policy has no prejudices for Muslims. Their killing is an attempt to develop a gap between two nations. Pakistani's should show solidarity and sympathy to affected families by paying tribute to them through writing letters and condemning this act.
Pakistan cannot even provide security for its own nationals how do you expect us to provide it for others. All we are capabale of is to back down and open talks with the TTP - we are the laughing stock of the world
I am close to feeling embarrassed of being Pakistani.......
this is the first time ever that china ask for such security from Pakistan otherwise China never say anything on the killings of Chinese Engineers in Baluchistan but now China is not trusting the Government of Pakistan coz of these Nawaz Shareef Brothers,because the Nawaz is more sympathetic towards India and coward in front of USA...
Its my request to the Chinese government to either pressure Pakistan to go out for an all-out offensive in North Waziristan or take the action themselves. The problem is that we have many Taliban apologists in the government and the security apparatus which has led to policy paralysis.
The tragedy was very very sad. Someone is trying to embarrass the new government. The government has to crack down with it's full force so that Pakistan becomes a safe and peaceful for all. Citizens will fully support all initiatives of the government to make Pakistan safe
To ensure the safety of foreign nationals all of them should be send back to their countries. This is the most convenient and cheap step our government can take.
maybe we get security like this....