The Pakistan Army has alleged that the plot to kill Chinese engineers in a suicide attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla region Mar 26 was hatched in Afghanistan.

Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry was quoted as saying by Dawn News: "A sad incident took place on March 26 in Bisham, where a suicide bomber targeted a car carrying Chinese engineers working on the Dasu dam, as a result of which, five Chinese citizens and a Pakistani got killed."

" This suicide bombing also connects to across the border [in Afghanistan]; the planning of this terrorism [act] was done in Afghanistan. Terrorists and their facilitators were also being controlled from Afghanistan and the suicide bomber was also an Afghan [national]," he said.

Sharif said the army strongly condemned “this ugly game of terrorism” and was “taking all necessary actions to bring its facilitators to justice”.

Targeting the Taliban-ruled government of Afghanistan, Sharif said that despite all the efforts by Pakistan and despite raising the issue with the Afghan interim government on a state level, “TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) terrorists are continuously committing acts of terrorism in Pakistan."

“There is concrete evidence that TTP terrorists are still using Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan,”  Sharif said. “In this regard, the Foreign Office has registered 12 protests and the army chief has taken a clear stance that Pakistan has its reservations on hideouts of banned outfits [in Afghanistan].

He said Pakistan will take all steps to eradicate terror networks from its soil.

Five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver were killed after a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into their convoy.

The convoy consisting of 12 vehicles was travelling from Islamabad to Dasu Dam in Kohistan when the attack reportedly occurred.

Dasu is the site of a major dam in the country.