Twin blasts kill at least three in Pakistan train attack

Quetta: Two explosions targeting military personnel on a passenger train killed at least three people and wounded 13 others in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern Balochistan province, officials said.

The attack yesterday, claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army, came as the Rawalpindi-bound Jaffer Express was passing the town of Much.

“The explosions damaged two passenger carriages and killed three people besides wounding 13 others,” senior Pakistan Railways official Imtiaz Ahmad said.

Provincial home secretary Akbar Harifal also confirmed the incident and casualties.

“We have rushed the rescue teams to the accident site,” he said, adding that the identities of the passengers were not immediately clear.

Oil and gas rich Balochistan province borders Iran and Afghanistan, and has been roiled for years by violent separatist, sectarian and Islamist insurgencies.

The Pakistani military is accused of committing widespread abuses in the fight against the insurgents, which it denies.

A spokesman for the Baloch Liberation Army said the attack had targeted “military personnel who travel to Rawalpindi by this train”.

Balochistan is also the site of China’s ambitious US$46bil (RM187bil) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor infrastructure project linking its western province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif “strongly condemned the attack and directed authorities concerned to find the culprits”.