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Deminers check the contents of a bag shortly after the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi. REUTERS / Akhtar Soomro

In Pakistan, two policemen were killed in the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi by three armed men. An attack claimed by the Baluchistan Liberation Army. Shortly afterwards, at least 20 people were killed and around 50 others injured in a bomb attack on a market in the tribal areas of the west of the country.

Three gunmen attempted to storm the Chinese consulate in Karachi killing two policemen. They were shot dead by security forces but failed to get inside the building.

China has strongly condemned this attack for which it is not known at this time whether it is related to that of the Kalaya market. The consulate attack was claimed by a separatist movement that calls Beijing "an oppressor", the Baluchistan Liberation Army (ALB), an unstable province in the south-west of the country. China, one of Pakistan's closest allies, has invested tens of billions of dollars in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which aims to connect its western Xinjiang province with the port of Gwadar in Baluchistan.

Baluchistan is the scene of several attacks

Several attacks against the Pakistani security forces have occurred in the north-west of the country in recent months, as well as in Baluchistan province (South-West), also bordering Afghanistan.

The level of violence, however, has fallen sharply in the country, according to a study by the CRSS, a Pakistani research center. The number of people killed in extremist, political or criminal violence has dropped by 70% in the last two years, with 2,057 violent deaths reported last year, compared to 6,574 in 2015.

At least 20 dead in Orakzai district

A little later, it is a market town of Kalaya, a town in Orakzai District in the tribal areas in the west of the country that was the target of a bomb attack. At this point, the circumstances of the attack that killed at least 20 people and wounded fifty others remain unclear. According to a local official, a craft craft hidden in a carton of vegetables would have exploded on the market. According to other sources, a biker would have darkened on the crowd before activating an explosive charge.

Bordering Afghanistan, the tribal areas form a region where the Taliban and al-Qaeda have long operated with impunity. They had become one of the stakes of the " war on terror ", in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

(With AFP)