Aslam Baluch, who officials say masterminded last month’s attack on a Chinese consulate in Pakistan, was targeted in Afghanistan.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — After the Chinese Consulate in a major Pakistani city was attacked by a squad of suicide bombers last month, Pakistani officials pointed fingers at the commander of a separatist group waging an insurgency in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.
On Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed that commander, Aslam Baluch, along with five associates in an upscale neighborhood of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.
No group has claimed responsibility for the Kandahar bombing. But it is widely believed to be an act of revenge for November’s consulate assault, highlighting the cross-border trading of insurgents and attacks by proxy that remains at the heart of relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
To Afghan officials, Tuesday’s attack bore the hallmarks of an operation directed by Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the I. S. I.
“The bomber was sent and guided by the I. S. I.,” Maj. Gen. Tadin Khan, the police chief of Kandahar, said on Thursday.
