A VAN driven by a suicide bomber exploded after ramming through a gate at the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan yesterday, wounding three people, local authorities said.

    “As a result of the explosion, only the suicide bomber terrorist died. Security guards were injured,” Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Jenish Razakov told journalists at the scene.

    Razakov said the three wounded were all Kyrgyz employees of the embassy and they have been hospitalized. Local medics said their injuries were not serious.

    China is shocked and strongly condemns the attack.

    “We asked the Kyrgyz side to get to the bottom of this incident and hold whoever is behind this accountable,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told journalists in Beijing yesterday.

    She said China requires Kyrgyzstan to take immediate and necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese people and institutions.

    According to local police sources, a Mitsubishi Delica van smashed through a gate at the embassy yesterday morning before exploding in the center of the compound close to the ambassador’s residence.

    The security service of the Central Asian nation — which borders China — said an “explosive device” had been placed inside the vehicle.

    Kyrgyz law enforcement sources put the strength of the blast at equivalent of up to 10 kilograms of TNT and one said body parts thought to be from the attacker were found several hundred meters from the blast site.

    Local residents said the blast had blown in their windows and caused their houses to shake.

    Pictures posted on social media purporting to be from the embassy showed a gate smashed open and debris inside the compound.

    Police had cordoned off the area, blocked traffic on one of the city’s main highways and were checking vehicles as emergency services worked.

    Employees from the Chinese and nearby American embassies on the edge of the city were evacuated, the Kyrgyz emergency service said.

    Impoverished Kyrgyzstan has a history of political instability and battling Islamist extremism.

    It has seen two governments overthrown and ethnic violence claim hundreds of lives since it gained independence in 1991.

    The authorities regularly announce that they have foiled attacks planned by the Islamic State group in the country.

    Security forces last year said they had engaged in several deadly shootouts with suspected “terrorists” in Bishkek.

    Officials say that some 500 Kyrgyz nationals are thought to have joined the ranks of Islamic State fighting in Syria and Iraq.

    One of three suicide bombers who carried out a deadly attack blamed on Islamic State at the international airport in the Turkish city Istanbul in June was reported to be from Kyrgyzstan.

    Kyrgyzstan is gearing up to mark 25 years since independence from the former Soviet Union with celebrations in Bishkek today.

    (SD-Xinhua)

    A suspected suicide bomber on Tuesday crashed a car through the entrance of the Chinese Embassy in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek, detonating a bomb that killed the attacker and wounded three embassy employees.

    China denounced the attack and appealed to Kyrgyz authorities to identify and harshly punish anyone involved. No group claimed responsibility.

    The Central Asian nation’s interior ministry said the person who drove the vehicle through the gate died when the bomb detonated. The three people injured are Kyrgyz nationals: two 17-year-old embassy gardeners and an unidentified woman.

    Almaz Kubatbekov, chief physician at the Bishkek National Trauma and Orthopedics Institute, said the three victims suffered concussions and multiple bruises.

    Photos from the scene showed the inner courtyard of the embassy compound littered with debris. Windows of one building were smashed and the plastered walls pockmarked with shrapnel.

    The embassy in Bishkek’s southern suburbs neighbors the U.S. embassy.

    Kyrgyzstan’s interior ministry described it as a terrorist attack. Deputy Prime Minister Zhenish Razakov told the Interfax news agency it was a suicide bombing.

    Kyrgyzstan, bordering China, has a predominantly Muslim population.

    A Kyrgyz news website, Kloop.kg, quoted Razakov as saying that he would lead a meeting Tuesday on tightening security ahead of Kyrgyz Independence Day today and a summit of former Soviet nations in mid-September.

    In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying described the three victims’ injuries as minor but called for a stern security response.

    “China is appalled and strongly condemns the violent act,” Hua told reporters at a daily briefing.

    She said China’s Foreign Ministry has “demanded that Kyrgyz authorities take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese institutions and personnel in Kyrgyzstan, launch a thorough investigation to find out the truth of the incident and harshly punish the perpetrators.”

    Kyrgyz authorities offered no guidance on the attacker or a possible motive.