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2025-03-12 India-Pakistan
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Train Hijacked in Terror attack in Balochistan
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[NYT] Separatist militants hijacked a train carrying more than 400 people in an isolated mountainous area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday. The fate of the passengers, dozens of whom the militants said they were holding hostage, was not immediately clear.
The militants, Baloch ethnic fighters, forced the train to stop in the Bolan district of Balochistan Province after opening fire on it, according to railway and police officials. The train was traveling from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. It was to pass through several cities, including Lahore and Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
Armed militants have taken 450 passengers hostage and wounded the train driver during a 'terrorist attack' in Pakistan's volatile southwestern Balochistan province, officials said.
The separatist Baloch Liberation Army has threatened to execute all the hostages it has in its custody if the Pakistani authorities attempt to intervene.
'Over 450 passengers onboard are being held hostage by gunmen,' Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway government official in Quetta, the capital of the province, told reporters.
The train was trapped inside a tunnel after the attack, during which it came under fire and the driver was wounded, police and railway officials said.
In a statement, the BLA claimed responsibility for the hijacking and said six military personnel had been killed in the gunfight.
The group said they had taken hostages from the train, including security forces, with the exact number in their custody unclear.
'During this operation, BLA fighters have released women, children, and Baloch passengers, ensuring that all remaining hostages are serving personnel of the occupying forces,' the group said in a statement.
No contact has been established with the 450 passengers and staff aboard the nine-coach train, railway officials told local media.
The Jaffar Express had been on its way from Quetta in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it was fired on, officials said.
A decades-old insurgency in Balochistan by separatist militant groups has led to frequent attacks against the government, army and Chinese interests in the region, pressing demands for a share in its resources.
The oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan's largest but also least populated province.
It is a hub for the country's ethnic Baloch minority whose members say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.
The BLA seeks independence for Balochistan. It is the biggest of several ethnic insurgent groups that have battled the South Asian nation's government for decades, saying it unfairly exploits Balochistan's rich gas and mineral resources.
Pakistani insurgents took over a passenger train carrying an estimated 500 people on Tuesday, with the separatists threatening to kill some 182 hostages if their demands were not met.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) blew up the tracks for the Jaffar Express train traveling through a tunnel in southwest Balochistan, killing at least 20 people in a subsequent shootout before hijacking the locomotive, local officials said.
The BLA claimed it freed all civilians on board the train, keeping about 182 alleged military and police personnel as hostages to exchange for the release of prisoners belonging to the separatist group.
The BLA, who has engaged in “intense” shootouts with responding forces, warned the Pakistani military not to interfere in the intense confrontation or else “all hostages will be executed.”
Balochistan officials have denied that there are any military officers on the train, slamming the attack as “an act of terrorism” threatening the lives of innocent civilians.
Imran Hayat, a senior official for Pakistan Railways, also refuted the BLA’s claim that it only killed Pakistani soldiers, noting that the train conductor was also killed in the assault, CNN reports.
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Posted by Lord Garth 2025-03-12 00:00||
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File under: Baloch Liberation Army
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Posted by Frank G 2025-03-12 09:26||
2025-03-12 09:26||
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Posted by Skidmark 2025-03-12 10:48||
2025-03-12 10:48||
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Posted by Skidmark 2025-03-12 11:18||
2025-03-12 11:18||
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Posted by Frank G 2025-03-12 11:45||
2025-03-12 11:45||
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Posted by Skidmark 2025-03-12 18:39||
2025-03-12 18:39||
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00:22 Anguper Hupomosing9418
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