AKIPRESS.COM - Two police officers have been reported killed following an attack at China's consulate in Pakistan's southern coastal city of Karachi, according to reports.

In a phone call to Al Jazeera on Friday, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) spokesman Jihand Baloch said the armed separatist group was responsible for the attack.

He said that three attackers armed with guns and grenades were involved in the fighting. Karachi police chief, Amir Shaikh, told Reuters that three attackers were killed outside the consulate compound.

He said they used explosive-filled vehicle in the incident. Police also told Al Jazeera that suicide vests and weapons were recovered from the area.

Pakistan's foreign ministry told Reuters that all 21 Chinese staff inside the consulate are safe. Earlier, Geo TV broadcast images of a plume of smoke billowing into the air, apparently from the blast earlier.

According to Dawn newspaper, the attack has ended. Al Jazeera's Alia Chughtai, reporting from Karachi, also said that the gunfire has stopped.

For more than a decade, armed Baloch separatist groups have been fighting for independence against Pakistani security forces, whom they consider to be an occupying force in Pakistan's largest and least-populated province.

The BLA is one of the more active groups in the region, conducting frequent attacks against Pakistani forces, as well as on projects being completed under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $56bn project that links southwestern China to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan.