ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has convened a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security tomorrow, Tuesday, the National Assembly spokesperson has said, to discuss the prevalent security situation in the country amid a surge in militant attacks. 

The development follows a sharp rise in militant attacks last week in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province. The most prominent of these attacks was led by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) outfit last Tuesday, whose fighters stormed the Jaffar Express train in a remote mountain pass in Balochistan after blowing up train tracks. The militants held over 400 passengers hostage in a day-long standoff before the military rescued them. Pakistan security forces killed 33 insurgents, rescued 354 hostages before bringing the siege to a close on Wednesday, according to army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry. A final count showed 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers had died in the attack.

At least five people, including three paramilitary soldiers, were killed on Sunday in a suicide blast in Balochistan’s Nushki district, the military said. 

“Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has convened an in-camera meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security on the advice of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif,” the National Assembly spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday. 

The meeting will be held at the National Assembly Hall on Tuesday at 1:30 pm, the spokesperson said, adding that the military would brief the committee on the country’s prevalent security situation. 

“Parliamentary leaders of all political parties present in parliament and their nominated representatives will attend the meeting,” the spokesperson said. “Cabinet members will also attend the national security meeting.”

Pakistan’s western provinces bordering Afghanistan and Iran have witnessed a surge in attacks since November 2022, after a fragile truce between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant outfit and the state collapsed. The TTP has carried out some of the deadliest attacks against Pakistan’s security forces and civilians since 2007 in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. 

Pakistan accuses the government in Afghanistan of sheltering TTP militants, allegations which have strained ties between the two neighbors and prompted strong denials from the Afghan Taliban. 

In oil-and-mineral-rich Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and least populated province, ethnic Baloch separatists have long accused the central government of denying locals of a share in the province’s resources. Islamabad and Pakistan’s military strongly reject the allegations. 

The military has a huge presence in Balochistan and has long run intelligence-based operations against insurgent groups such as the BLA, who have escalated attacks in recent months on the military and nationals from longtime ally China, which is building key projects in the region, including a port at Gwadar.

More than 50 people, including security forces, were killed in August last year in a string of assaults in Balochistan claimed by the BLA.