Updated on Monday, July 09, 2007, 00:00 IST

Pakistan promised on Monday to provide adequate security for Chinese citizens after three were shot dead by gunmen in an attack apparently linked to the siege of a mosque in Islamabad.

The statement came after Beijing's ambassador to Islamabad condemned the killings by suspected Islamic militants of the Chinese workers at their home on the outskirts of Peshawar.

A fourth Chinese man was seriously wounded in the attack.

"President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have strongly condemned the killings and have ordered an immediate inquiry," Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told a briefing.

"They have given a message to the Chinese leadership in which they have assured that all Chinese nationals will be provided with security," she added.

The Pakistani leaders had also sent messages of condolence to Beijing, Aslam said.

Pakistani security officials said the attack was a "targeted killing."

Immediate suspicion was on a hardline Islamist group from northwest Pakistan with ties to Islamabad's Red Mosque, Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, which is campaigning for the imposition of Islamic law, they said.

Islamist students at the mosque, whom the government says are now led by Al-Qaeda-linked militants, including foreign fighters, have been locked in a bloody seven-day standoff with security forces.

Aslam said there were no Chinese militants in the compound. Several Muslim separatists from China's Xinjiang region have previously been caught or killed in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Students from the mosque were last month involved in the brief kidnapping of seven Chinese people who were working in an Islamabad acupuncture clinic that the abductors insisted was a brothel.

Chinese ambassador Luo Zhaohui released a statement earlier Monday condemning the killings of the Chinese workers and urging a probe, according to the official Xinhua news agency, which published excerpts of the statement.

China is one of Pakistan's closest allies and its biggest military supplier.

Bureau Report