PESHAWAR: The government in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday formed a ‘supervisory committee’ to implement measures aimed at restoring peace in the region’s Kurram district, which has been marred by deadly sectarian clashes since last month.
Sectarian feuding in Kurram has claimed at least 133 lives, with over 177 injured in sporadic clashes since Nov. 21. A grand jirga was formed last week to broker a truce after two previous deals to stymie the fighting failed. Last Friday, warring sides in Kurram agreed to an indefinite ceasefire.
Pakistan is a Sunni-majority country, but Kurram has a large Shiite population, and the communities have clashed for decades.
The provincial committee has also been formed in the backdrop of a rise in militancy in KP in recent months, with groups like the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, daily targeting security forces’ convoys and check posts, and carrying out targeted killings and kidnappings of law enforcers and government officials.
“The following Provincial Supervisory Committee is hereby constituted by the KP CM,” a notification by the KP Home and Tribal Affairs Department said, adding that the body would implement the provincial cabinet’s measures to ensure “stability and peace of the [Kurram] region.”
The body, which will meet weekly, will be headed by Muhammad Ali Saif, an adviser to the KP chief minister, and will be assisted by members of the civil administration and law enforcement agencies, the notification added, without giving any details of the exact mandate of the committee.
Last week, an All Parties Conference organized by opposition parties in KP had blamed the federal and provincial governments for “failing” to address security challenges as the region faces a rise in militant attacks and weeks of sectarian feuding.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan is the ruling party in KP but did not attend the gathering.
Pakistani northwestern province forms committee to ensure peace in district marred by sectarian clashes
https://arab.news/msnpw
Pakistani northwestern province forms committee to ensure peace in district marred by sectarian clashes
- KP’s Kurram district is in grips of sectarian feuding with at least 133 people killed and 177 injured since Nov. 21
- Committee also formed in backdrop of rise in militancy in KP in recent months, with daily attacks by TTP group
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.
