Armed gunmen have killed two policemen as they stormed the Chinese consulate in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, security officials say, in a raid claimed by ethnic Baloch separatists.

Security forces killed all three attackers and secured the building shortly after the raid was launched on Friday morning, Pakistan’s military said in a statement.

No Chinese citizens or Pakistani civilians were killed, security officials said.

“All of our Chinese friends and officials who work at the consulate, 21 in total, all of them are safe and they have been shifted to a secure location,” said Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at a press conference.

“The area is now clear.”

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan denounced the attack as a “conspiracy” against China-Pakistan strategic cooperation, and has ordered an inquiry.

The military confirmed that three attackers had been killed and that the paramilitary Rangers and police had regained control of the area.

A military spokesperson told Al Jazeera that two policemen had been killed when the attackers initially fired on the gate of the consulate to gain entry.

The raid was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an armed separatist group that has been fighting the Pakistani state for independence for Balochistan province for more than a decade.

“The BLA claims responsibility for this attack. Three of our fighters have raided the consulate,” BLA spokesperson Jihand Baloch told Al Jazeera via satellite phone from an undisclosed location while the raid was ongoing.

Baloch said the fighters were members of the Fidayeen Majeed Brigade, a new force raised by the group to carry out suicide attacks against Pakistani security forces and Chinese targets.

In April, the BLA launched a suicide attack targeting a bus carrying Chinese engineers in Dalbandin, wounding at least six people.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and least populated province, will see a number of new roads and a port constructed under the $56bn China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an infrastructure and energy corridor that sees southwestern China linked to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan.

The BLA and other armed Baloch separatist groups have frequently targeted Chinese personnel since the launch of CPEC, terming the project an “imperialist” endeavour.

“The objective of this attack is clear: we will not tolerate any Chinese military expansionist endeavours on Baloch soil,” the BLA said in a statement.

The group released an image of three young men – Azal Khan, Raziq Baloch and Raees Baloch – it claimed were the attackers who targeted the consulate. A later tweet confirmed that they had been killed.

Pakistan will be raising several new wings of civil armed forces to secure CPEC, which the government and military have both highlighted as a strategic priority for the country.

“Those forces who do not want there to be peace in Pakistan, who want to place obstacles in the way of Pakistan’s progress, their designs have been foiled by our young soldiers,” said Foreign Minister Qureshi.

[Source: Al Jazeera]