Pakistan launches 'full-scale' operation to free train hostages
Pakistan forces launched a "full-scale" operation on Wednesday to rescue train passengers taken hostage by militants in the mountainous southwest, with security sources saying 155 had been freed in the past 24 hours.
More than 450 passengers were on board when militants captured the train at the entrance of a tunnel in a remote frontier district, with an unknown number of hostages still being held.
"Information suggests that some militants have fled, taking an unknown number of hostages into the local mountainous areas," a security official in the area told AFP.
Militants bombed a section of the railway track and stormed the train on Tuesday afternoon in southwest Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, where attacks by separatists have risen sharply in the past year.
According to security sources, the "terrorists have positioned suicide bombers right next to innocent hostage passengers".
Three people have been killed, including the train driver, during the siege in mountainous Sibi district.
A security official told AFP "a full-scale operation" would aim to free the rest of the captives.
"Security forces have safely rescued 155 passengers... 27 terrorists have been eliminated," a security source said.
Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway government official in the provincial capital Quetta, told AFP on Tuesday afternoon that the 450 passengers on board had been taken hostage.
It was not immediately clear how many people remained on board, but passengers who spent hours walking through rugged mountains to reach safety described being set free by the militants.
"Our women pleaded with them, and they spared us," Babar Masih, a 38-year-old Christian labourer told AFP on Wednesday. "They told us to get out and not look back. As we ran, I noticed many others running alongside us."
At a railway station in Quetta, paramilitary troops brought empty coffins that will be sent to the site of the incident.
"I can't find the words to describe how we managed to escape. It was terrifying," Muhammad Bilal, who had been travelling with his mother on the Jaffar Express train, told AFP.
- Outsiders identified -
The assault was immediately claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group that has staged a series of recent attacks against security forces and ethnic groups from outside the province they accuse of benefiting from the region's wealth.
The group has demanded an exchange with security forces for its imprisoned members.
The train driver, a police officer and a soldier were killed in the assault, according to paramedic Nazim Farooq and railway official Muhammad Aslam.
Several passengers told AFP that gunmen demanded to see identity cards to confirm who was from outside the province, similar to a spate of recent attacks carried out by the BLA.
"They came and checked IDs and service cards and shot two soldiers in front of me and took the other four to... I don't know where," said one passenger who asked not to be identified, after walking four hours to the nearest train station.
"Those who were Punjabis were taken away by the terrorists," he said.
Around 80 of the released passengers were taken to Quetta under "tight security", said a police official who was not authorised to speak to the media.
- Growing insurgency -
Authorities restrict access to some areas of Balochistan where many energy and infrastructure projects are backed by China, which has invested billions in the region including in a major port and airport.
The BLA claim the region's natural resources are being exploited by outsiders and has increased attacks targeting Pakistanis from other regions, security forces and foreign infrastructure projects.
The group launched coordinated overnight attacks last year that included taking control of a major highway and shooting dead travellers from other ethnic groups, stunning the country.
The BLA claimed an attack in February that killed 17 paramilitary soldiers and a woman suicide bomber killed a soldier this month.
"The valuable natural resources in Balochistan belong to the Baloch nation," a BLA statement said at the time.
"Pakistani military generals and their Punjabi elite are looting these resources for their own luxury."
Baloch residents regularly stage protests against the state, which they accuse of rounding up innocent people in its crackdown on militancy.
Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan but last year saw a surge in violence in the province compared with 2023, according to the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies.
It found 2024 was the deadliest year for Pakistan in a decade, with violence rising along the Afghanistan border since the Taliban government took back power in Kabul in 2021.
Pakistan blames its neighbour for allowing militant groups safe haven to plan and launch attacks on Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies.
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