Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan Hit by Suspected Suicide Car Bomb

Italy is to hold mass funeral for earthquake victims after protests by bereaved relatives, A suspected suicide car bomber rammed the gates of the Chinese embassy in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, yesterday, killing the attacker and wounding at least three other people, officials said.

Officials from both countries described the assault as a terrorist act, and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev ordered the government to take extra counter-terrorism measures in the capital and regions, his office said in statement.

China condemned the attack and urged Kyrgyz authorities to “quickly investigate and determine the real situation behind the incident.

“China is deeply shocked by this and strongly condemns this violent and extreme act,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

The ministry later said China would “resolutely strike against all forms of terrorism” and protect the safety of its people and government organizations overseas.

A Kyrgyz Interior Ministry spokesman said the car exploded inside the compound. Police cordoned off the embassy and adjacent area, and the GKNB state security service were investigating the bombing that occurred at about 10:00 a.m. (0400 GMT).

Three embassy staff suffered minor injuries and had been taken to hospital, but no organization claimed responsibility, Hua said.

China’s state news agency Xinhua reported that five people were wounded: two security guards and three Kyrgyz nationals working at the embassy. as crews continued to dig for bodies under mounds

of rubble. Family members

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan, a mostly Muslim former Soviet republic of 6 million people, routinely detain suspected militants they accuse of being linked to Islamic State, which actively recruits from Central Asia.

A Turkish official said in June that one of three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers involved in the deadly attack on Istanbul’s main airport was a Kyrgyz national.

An anti-Chinese militant group made up of ethnic Uighurs - a Turkic-language speaking, mainly Muslim people living in China’s

Xinjiang region - is also believed to be active in Central Asia.

Some security experts have questioned the group’s cohesiveness, however, and say China’s policies in Xinjiang, where hundreds have died in recent years in unrest blamed by Beijing on Islamist extremists, have contributed to the unrest.

In 2014, Kyrgyz border guards killed 11 people understood to be members of that group who had illegally crossed the Chinese-Kyrgyz border.

Attacks on Chinese missions abroad are rare but in 2015, an Islamist militant attack on a hotel in Mali killed three Chinese citizens, and in Pakistan, Chinese workers have occasionally been targeted by what police say are nationalists opposed to Beijing’s plan to invest tens

of billions of dollars in a new trade route to the Arabian Sea. That is part of China’s “One Belt, One Road” project to open new markets via Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. had objected to plans to hold the ceremony in an aircraft hangar in the town of Rieti where the bodies had been

stored. The funeral will instead be held in Amatrice, the place hardest-hit by last week’s 6.2-magnitude quake.

Of the 292 confirmed dead, 231 were found in Amatrice, which was left in ruins. A number of foreigners were among the dead, including 11

Romanians and three Britons. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, President Sergio Mattarella and Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos were

scheduled to attend the funeral at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), the Civil Protection Agency said.

Tuesday’s funeral is for some three dozen of the victims. Many of those who died in Amatrice on Aug. 24 were not residents and their funerals are being held in their hometowns. Workers used heavy machinery to gravel over an area on Amatrice’s outskirts where the

ceremony will take place within sight of shattered buildings.

Marquees were still being erected for the funeral ceremony as the first caskets arrived. A hearse and a van carrying at least four

coffins had to be turned away until the work could be completed.

In the center of town emergency workers used mechanical diggers and bulldozers to search for bodies, an unknown number of which may still be trapped beneath dust and debris. It is the second state-sponsored funeral in three days. On Saturday rites were held for victims of the quake from the adjoining Marche region. Amatrice is in the region of Lazio.

Investigators are looking into work done on the bell tower in Accumoli, which was recently restored but collapsed during the quake

onto the home of a family of four, killing them all. Italy sits on two seismic faultlines. Many of its buildings are hundreds of years old and susceptible to earthquake damage. Almost 30 people died in earthquakes in northern Italy in 2012 and more than 300 in the city of L’Aquila in 2009.