Taliban reject Pakistan's claim Afghan bomber involved in attack on Chinese dam engineers

The Taliban defense ministry on Wednesday rejected Pakistan's allegations that Afghans were involved in an attack on Chinese engineers, as ties between the neighboring nations sour amidst rising insecurity.

Pakistan's military had said at a press conference on Tuesday that a suicide bomb attack in March in Pakistan's northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, that killed five Chinese engineers, was planned in neighboring Afghanistan, and that the bomber was an Afghan national.

"Afghans are not involved in such matters," said Mufti Enayatullah Khorazmim, the spokesperson for Afghanistan's Taliban-run Ministry of National Defence.

"Blaming Afghanistan for such incidents is a failed attempt to divert attention from the truth of the matter and we strongly reject it," he added.

A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a dam project in northwest Pakistan in March, killing six people.

"The killing of Chinese citizens in an area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that is under tight security cover by the Pakistan Army shows the weakness of the Pakistani security agencies," Khorazmim said.

Pakistan's military spokesman said on Tuesday that security for 29,000 Chinese nationals in Pakistan, many of them working on infrastructure projects, was the top priority for security institutions.

Reuters