Provincial authorities in Pakistan report that a devastating suicide attack on a passenger train has claimed the lives of more than 30 individuals, marking another deadly incident in the country’s ongoing security crisis.
The attack occurred Sunday when a suicide bomber crashed a vehicle packed with explosives into a shuttle train in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Pakistan’s restive province. Two provincial officials, who requested anonymity because they lacked authorization to share the details publicly, confirmed Monday that fatalities had climbed beyond 30 from an initial count of 24.
The targeted train was transporting Pakistani security forces members and their relatives from Quetta’s military cantonment district. Passengers were connecting to the Jaffar Express for holiday travel to their hometowns for Eid al-Adha celebrations, according to an official.
The powerful blast caused the locomotive and three cars to derail, while two additional cars flipped over, Pakistan’s railways ministry reported. Photographs from the attack site revealed charred vehicles, overturned train cars, damaged homes, mangled metal and scattered wreckage along the railway line, with flames and smoke continuing to rise from the destruction.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has taken responsibility for the bombing, characterizing it as a suicide attack. Reuters was unable to independently confirm this claim.
Neither Pakistan’s civilian government nor its military leadership has issued an official casualty figure for the incident, which represents the most recent in an ongoing series of assaults targeting trains, security personnel and critical infrastructure.
The separatist organization has waged a multi-decade campaign over what it calls the unfair exploitation of natural resources in the mineral-wealthy province, arguing that residents are denied their rightful portion of the benefits.
The province shares borders with both Iran and Afghanistan and hosts Chinese development initiatives as well as the strategically important Gwadar deep-water port.
In a previous major incident last March, BLA fighters seized control of the same Jaffar Express while it carried army soldiers, holding hundreds of passengers captive before military forces ended the daylong siege. That confrontation resulted in 21 hostage deaths, four military casualties and the elimination of all 33 attackers.
Pakistani security forces announced earlier this year that they had eliminated 145 militants following coordinated strikes the group launched throughout the province that killed nearly 50 people.
