Pakistan Train Siege Ends With Dozens Dead

UPDATE Mar 12, 2025 6:30 PM CDT

A siege that began Tuesday when separatist militants seized a train is over, Pakistani authorities say. Officals said Wednesday all 33 Baloch Liberation Army militants on the Jaffar Express were killed in the operation and hundreds of captives were freed, the Guardian reports. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the military operation "has successfully reached its logical conclusion" and a "potential catastrophe" was averted. He said the militants, who demanded a prisoner exchange after seizing the train in a remote area, killed 21 hostages but none of them died as a result of the military operation, reports the AP. There were around 450 people on the train when it was attacked Tuesday, but passengers say the militants later released groups of travelers that included women and children, the New York Times reports.

Mar 11, 2025 8:34 AM CDT

Pakistani insurgents opened fire Tuesday on a passenger train in the country's southwestern Balochistan province, wounding the driver and prompting security guards aboard the train to fire back, officials said. CNN reports the attack came as the train approached a tunnel. Pakistan Railways sources confirm to Al Jazeera that the nine-car Jaffar Express held more than 400 passengers, and that "intense firing" at the train had been reported, per government spokesman Shahid Rind. After the attack, the train, which Rind said had been traveling about 1,000 miles from the provincial capital of Quetta to the northern city of Peshawar, stopped in a remote area in the Bolan district, reports the AP.

"We are unable to make any contact with passengers and crew, and the situation remains unclear," a railway official told CNN of the apparent hostage situation. The separatist Baloch Liberation Army has taken responsibility for the ambush, claiming that six military personnel have already been killed and that more people would die if any kind of security operation were to be attempted. Rind said ambulances had been dispatched to the scene, but he added that the region's mountainous terrain was making rescue efforts "challenging." The government rep describes the attack as "an act of terrorism," per the AP. (More train hijacking stories.)