ISLAMABAD: Seventeen suspects have been detained over Monday's bombing attack on Chinese engineers at Gwadar port, southwestern Pakistan, Karachi police told Xinhua yesterday.

The police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said those detained are all Pakistani nationals and are under interrogation.

The Dawn, the country's top English newspaper, earlier quoted official sources as saying the initial stage of the investigation revealed a remote-controlled bomb was used in the attack.

The bomb planted in a parked empty pickup exploded on Monday, damaging a bus that was passing by and left three Chinese engineers killed. Nine other Chinese engineers and two local employees were injured.

China will send a joint working group made up of officials from the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Communications to handle post-explosion affairs in Pakistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in Beijing on Tuesday.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali have sent letters of sympathy to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

In a telephone conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, his Pakistani counterpart Mian Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri offered his condolences to the families of those killed and conveyed his sympathies to the injured engineers.

Li is traveling with Premier Wen Jiabao on a European trip,

(HK Edition 05/06/2004 page1)