Pakistani Taliban attacks police outpost, killing three officers
Attackers threw grenades at the police facility before a suicide bomber entered the premises and detonated himself
The outlawed militant group said in November it would no longer abide by a ceasefire with the government
Updated 19 January 2023
Reuters
PESHAWAR: The Pakistani Taliban on Thursday claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a police post in northern Pakistan that killed three police officers.
Attackers threw grenades at a police outpost near the Afghan border in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and entered the premises where a suicide bomber detonated explosives, according to police. They said the number of wounded was not yet known. In November, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group also known as the Pakistani Taliban, said it would no longer abide by a months-long ceasefire with the Pakistani government.
TTP militants have been waging a campaign of bombings and suicide attacks for over a decade in a bid to run Pakistan under a harsh brand of Islamic law. They have ramped up attacks after calling off the ceasefire brokered by the Afghan Taliban in May.
Pakistan’s military has launched periodic offensives in regions along the Afghan border that have served as safe havens for Islamist militants.
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.”
The Jaffar Express stands derailed near Abad Railway Station in Jacobabad following a blast on January 26, 2026. (AN Photo/Saadullah Akhtar)
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.
The Jaffar Express stands derailed near Abad Railway Station in Jacobabad following a blast on January 26, 2026. (AN Photo/Saadullah Akhtar)
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.
