It rose to 89 dead and 160 wounded the death toll from yesterday's suicide attack in a "Pakistani" mosque in the city of Peshawar (capital of the "tribal areas" close to the Afghan border). The action "would be" a revenge for the killing of the TTP leader (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) Omar Khalid Khorasani, which occurred in August 2022 for the explosion of a bomb placed along a road in the Afghan province of Paktika.
If the area of the world between China, Iran and India, until a few years ago, saw many nations engaged on the ground - albeit behind the USA - with their own intelligence, military assistance forces and above all funds (billionaires!) ... today it has a sole master: the People's Republic of China.
China, we recall, was among the few countries to have recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan as early as August 2021, however since then he would have been realizing a strategic mistake: having invested in an area rich in resources but today even more unstable and unpredictable.
Last month, during a attack in a hotel in the Afghan capital, five Chinese had been seriously injured. The hotel (Chinese owned) would have been a regular meeting place for business discussions. The "deeply shocked" Beijing government had advised its citizens to leave the country "as soon as possible".
Three weeks ago, still in Kabul, in front of the Foreign Ministry, during a meeting between the Taliban and Chinese officials, un serious attack had taken the life of 5 afghani and woundo 40 people.
After showing, less than two years ago, images (photos) of welcoming the next leaders of the country to their court (with contempt for the blood of thousands of men shed in decades of missions by international coalitions and tens of thousands of Afghans …), China is already paying a bill that will be increasingly salty.
Chinese (state-controlled) media reported in 2021 that the US withdrawal would serve as a warning to Taiwan that relying on US protection will be a mistake.
In 2023, the evidence for Beijing is quite different: after seeing the passage of many foreigners and an international coalition, the area "at one's feet" is mined. And - above all - behind the mask... there is (and there will always be more) very little to smile about!
images: CNN / Xinhua
