How a train hijacking’s 36 hours of terror unfolded in Balochistan

medium118973294Thirty-six hours after one of the most audacious militant assaults in Pakistan in years, the country’s military declared on March 12 that it had ended a deadly siege by a separatist group on a passenger train in a restive southwestern province.The attack, carried out by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), unfolded on March 11 as the Jaffar Express, carrying more than 400 passengers, wound through the province’s rugged and isolated mountains. Gunmen opened fire, forced the train to halt and took hostages.On the night of March 12, Pakistan’s military said that security forces had carried out a rescue operation that secured the hostages’ release and left 33 militants dead.Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif, the army’s spokesperson, told a local broadcaster, Dunya News, that at least 21 passengers had died in the separatists’ assault on the train. He said that no hostages had been killed in the security forces’ rescue operation. The military’s account could not be independently verified.Sharif said that four paramilitary soldiers affiliated with the government had died when militants ambushed them near a checkpoint. He provided no details on casualties among other security forces. Some passengers, he said, fled in different directions during the chaos and were being accounted for.The BLA insisted that it was still holding more than 100 hostages and claimed to have killed dozens of soldiers. That account, too, could not be confirmed. The hijacking took place in an area with little or no cell or internet service, making it difficult to gather independent information.The train was travelling from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, with scheduled stops in several cities, including Lahore and Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.Noman Ahmed, a steelworker originally from Gujranwala district in Punjab province, was aboard the ill-fated train, hoping to return home for Eid with his family.About 160km from Quetta, his journey took a terrifying turn. “When we heard the blast, we dropped to the floor and locked the carriage door, hoping to escape the gunfire,” Ahmed said in a telephone interview.Moments later, a militant appeared. “He ordered everyone out, threatening to blow up the carriage with a rocket launcher,” Ahmed said. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/XfUibIvSbSo?si=Xdbfqs_Ny91TZveoThe gunmen separated women and the elderly from the rest of the passengers, who were forced to move towards a nearby hillside, Ahmed said. Some injured passengers remained inside the train, he said.“They ordered them to come out,” Ahmed said. “When they didn’t, the gunmen went in and shot them all.”As night fell, the militants began moving hostages in groups of 10 or 12. At dawn, five captives made a daring escape, Ahmed said.“When the militants entered the train, we ran,” he said. “We ran nearly 8km before reaching a paramilitary checkpoint, where soldiers opened fire on the militants chasing us.”“I escaped with my family’s prayers,” Ahmed added. “I thank God but grieve for those innocent lives lost.”Another passenger on the train, Muhammad Ashraf, said that after the militants had taken all of the passengers hostage, they later released parties travelling with women and children.Ashraf was among a group of 80 passengers who were freed on the night of March 11. He said he had reached a railway station after walking for hours along the tracks.He also recounted harrowing scenes on the train. “When the train was attacked, everyone threw themselves to the floor, using luggage and sacks to shield themselves from the bullets,” Ashraf said by phone after reaching Quetta. “Screams were echoing everywhere.”Balochistan, a large and sparsely populated province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, has long been plagued by separatist violence and insurgent activity. The province is also home to major China-led projects, including a strategic port in Gwadar.Ethnic separatist groups have regained momentum, increasingly attacking security forces and Chinese citizens involved in projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s infrastructure investment programme. The separatists accuse Pakistan’s government of allowing China to extract the region’s wealth.The BLA has long sought a separate homeland for the Baloch people, arguing that they have been left behind economically and that they would find greater prosperity with more political control.Experts say that separatist groups have become increasingly emboldened and sophisticated in their operations, now incorporating tactics such as suicide bombings. That approach was previously associated primarily with Islamist militants, such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the regional Islamic State group affiliate, ISIS-K, operating in northwestern Pakistan and Afghanistan. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/M_4JlUmhhjY?si=mmob4phryIB2WbM3A global terrorism index published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an international think tank, ranked Pakistan as one of the countries most affected by terrorism last year, second only to Burkina Faso in Africa.Along with the TTP and ISIS-K, the BLA has solidified its position among the 10 deadliest global terrorist organisations on the index, posing a significant challenge to the Pakistani government’s counterterrorism efforts.“The ability of the BLA to hijack a train with such precision suggests an advanced intelligence-gathering network and strategic planning,” said Dost Muhammad Barrech, an academic at the University of Balochistan in Quetta.Just last week, an alliance of separatist groups, including the BLA, announced plans to intensify attacks on Pakistani security forces, infrastructure and Chinese interests in the region.The BLA has repeatedly targeted Chinese nationals, including a deadly bombing last year near Karachi’s international airport, highlighting the ongoing threat to China’s presence in Pakistan.The Jaffar Express has been a frequent target of BLA attacks, primarily because many lower-ranking military personnel and law enforcement officers use it to travel to their hometowns, mostly in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province. Baloch separatist groups say that Punjab has an unfair dominance in the central government and the military, fuelling tensions in Balochistan.In November, passengers waiting for the train were targeted when the BLA carried out one of Pakistan’s deadliest terrorist attacks: a suicide bombing at Quetta’s busy railway station. The blast killed at least 25 people, including security personnel.The Jaffar Express service had resumed only in October after a two-month suspension. In August, BLA militants had blown up sections of the railway tracks, including a colonial-era bridge.In the same area, BLA militants have forcibly removed passengers from buses and killed them after identifying them as being from Punjab. Just last month, seven labourers were killed in such an attack.“The government was aware that the train is often targeted, yet they still allowed people to travel without adequate security,” said Syed Mustafa, whose mother had been on the train en route to Lahore to attend a wedding. “This is a government failure.”