Pakistani insurgents attack a train carrying hundreds of people and take hostages
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani insurgents attacked a passenger train carrying several hundred people as it passed through a tunnel on Tuesday and claimed to have taken more than 100 hostages, though officials later said that at least 80 were rescued. The fate of the rest wasn’t immediately known.
Security officials said the attackers blew up the railroad track in the southwestern Balochistan province, and exchanged fire with security guards aboard the train while using women and children as human shields.
The train was traveling from the provincial capital, Quetta, to the northern city of Peshawar when it came under attack in Bolan district, government spokesman Shahid Rind said, calling it “an act of terrorism.”
He said that a rescue operation was underway, but access wasn’t easy because of the rugged, mountainous terrain.
The separatist Baloch Liberation Army, which has waged a yearslong insurgency, claimed responsibility for the attack and said that it took more than 100 people as hostages, including security force members who were onboard. The group, which Pakistan and the United States have designated a terrorist organization, didn’t respond to calls.
But in a statement, BLA spokesman Junaid Baloch said that the group was ready to free passengers if the government agrees to release the group’s jailed militants. Government officials weren’t immediately available to discuss the offer, but authorities have rejected such offers in the past.
Officials at Pakistan Railways said that the Jafar Express train was carrying an estimated 500 passengers, including women and children, and an unspecified number of security force members onboard.
Three security officials later told The Associated Press that troops rescued at least 80 passengers, including 26 women and 11 children, and 13 attackers had been killed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.
Trains in Balochistan typically have security personnel on board. Separatists have previously carried out deadly attacks on trains in the region. In November, a separatist group carried out a suicide bombing at a train station in Quetta that killed 26 people.
Pakistani authorities and analysts estimate that the BLA has around 3,000 fighters. BLA regularly targets Pakistani security forces, but has also in the past attacked civilians and even Chinese nationals working on multibillion-dollar projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC.
Pakistan hosts thousands of Chinese workers as part of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, which is building major infrastructure projects.
BLA has enhanced its operational capability, and that “means that BLA has access to funding and weapons,” according to Abdullah Khan, a senior defense analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.
Oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and least populated province. It’s a hub for the country’s ethnic Baloch minority, whose members say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.
