BEIJING (AFP) -- China on Friday condemned a suicide bomb attack in southwest Pakistan that targeted a convoy of Chinese workers and left at least 30 Pakistanis dead.

""China strongly condemns the terror attack (in Pakistan) and expresses its grief over those killed and offers its condolences to their relatives and to those injured,"" the foreign ministry said in a short statement. In the Pakistan's southwestern industrial town of Hub, a suicide car bomber on Thursday blew himself up as a convoy of Chinese citizens and security forces passed by, killing at least 30 Pakistanis but no Chinese nationals. Police who were guarding the Chinese convoy were among those killed, according to authorities in Pakistan who said the bombing was a suicide attack. Analysts and officials in Pakistan say that Islamic and tribal militants are attacking Chinese in order to harm Islamabad's relations with China, its powerful ally and biggest military supplier. Thursday's attack came two weeks after China demanded better protection for its citizens in Pakistan following the killing of three Chinese men in the northwestern city of Peshawar by suspected Islamic militants. In February last year, three Chinese engineers working for a cement plant were gunned down in Baluchistan, the same province as where Thursday's attack occurred.