ISLAMABAD: Four soldiers of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Constabulary lost their lives after a group of militants from across the Afghan side of the border targeted them in an ambush, the military’s media wing, ISPR, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The soldiers had been involved in fencing activities on the border.
“Today during fencing activity in Manzakai Sector, Distt Zhob, Balochistan along Pakistan — Afghanistan Border, Terrorists from across Afghanistan ambushed FC troops moving for fencing,” ISPR said. “FC troops responded promptly.”
Pakistan’s foreign office condemned the attack as “detrimental to ongoing peace and stability along Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”
Foreign office spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said in a statement that Pakistan had asked Afghan authorities to “undertake effective measures” against organized militant groups operating from the Afghan soil and follow “mutually agreed protocols and SOPs and avoid recurrence of such incidents in future.”
Pakistan started fencing its border with Iran and Afghanistan in March 2017 to curb cross-border militancy.
Pakistan has frequently attributed high-profile militant attacks to groups in Afghanistan and Iran who, it says, enter the country by crossing the porous border separating the two neighboring states.
Four Pakistani troops killed in militant attack while fencing Afghan border
https://arab.news/5bthd
Four Pakistani troops killed in militant attack while fencing Afghan border
- Pakistan is fencing its frontier with Afghanistan and Iran to curb cross-border militancy and smuggling
- Islamabad condemns the attack, says it’s detrimental to ongoing stability efforts along Pakistan-Afghanistan border
No casualties as blast derails Jaffar Express train in Pakistan’s south
- Passengers were stranded and railway staffers were clearing the track after blast, official says
- In March 2025, separatist militants hijacked the same train with hundreds of passengers aboard
QUETTA: A blast hit Jaffar Express and derailed four carriages of the passenger train in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday, officials said, with no casualties reported.
The blast occurred at the Abad railway station when the Peshawar-bound train was on its way to Sindh’s Sukkur city from Quetta, according to Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division controller Muhammad Kashif.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but passenger trains have often been targeted by Baloch separatist outfits in the restive Balochistan province that borders Sindh.
“Four bogies of the train were derailed due to the intensity of the explosion,” Kashif told Arab News. “No casualty was reported in the latest attack on passenger train.”
Another railway employee, who was aboard the train and requested anonymity, said the train was heading toward Sukkur from Jacobabad when they heard the powerful explosion, which derailed power van among four bogies.
“A small piece of the railway track has been destroyed,” he said, adding that passengers were now standing outside the train and railway staffers were busy clearing the track.
In March last year, fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group had stormed Jaffar Express with hundreds of passengers on board and took them hostage. The military had rescued them after an hours-long operation that left 33 militants, 23 soldiers, three railway staff and five passengers dead.
The passenger train, which runs between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and Peshawar in the country’s northwest, had been targeted in at least four bomb attacks last year since the March hijacking, according to an Arab News tally.
Pakistan Railways says it has beefed up security arrangements for passenger trains in the province and increased the number of paramilitary troops on Jaffar Express since the hijacking in March, but militants have continued to target them in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the site of a decades-long insurgency waged by Baloch separatist groups who often attack security forces and foreigners, and kidnap government officials.
The separatists accuse the central government of stealing the region’s resources to fund development elsewhere in the country. The Pakistani government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan.
