The shuttle bus blast in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on Wednesday which killed nine Chinese technical experts and four Pakistanis could be the handiwork of a ‘third country,’ as no militant group has taken responsibility for it, Global Times reported quoting Chinese defence experts.

According to Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, “since no terrorist group has claimed responsibility, it is possible the attack was committed by a third-party force - intelligence agency from a third country.” Evidence has been seized (earlier) of a third-country trying to mess up with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, he said without elaborating.

Qian also pointed a finger at the Pakistani Taliban stating that although it is not certain whether it was the Pakistani Taliban who committed the attack, it fitted their modus operandi. In recent years, the terrorist group has targeted Chinese projects in the country, and launched attacks on Chinese tourists, as well as businesspeople.

Another expert, Wang Shida, deputy director of the South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania Research Institute of Contemporary International Relations Research Academy of China, pointed out that while the number of violent attacks has been decreasing in Pakistan, those against Chinese targets have been increasing in the past two years.

This is mainly due to the smooth progress of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Wang explained. Some people “inside and outside Pakistan” do not want to see this and always attempt to create vicious incidents to delay progress, Wang said.