Pakistani officials said the attack occurred on Sunday when a bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a shuttle train carrying security personnel and their families, derailing several coaches and triggering extensive destruction in nearby civilian areas.

The separatist Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the bombing, the latest in a string of militant attacks in Balochistan, a strategically significant province bordering Iran and Afghanistan that hosts key Chinese-backed infrastructure projects including Gwadar port.

As rescue teams and residents continued clearing debris ahead of the Eid holiday, many families said celebrations had given way to grief and financial hardship.

“I appeal to the government to help me. My entire house, from top to bottom, has been destroyed,” said Hishrat, a resident whose home was severely damaged in the blast. She said the family had spent years saving money to build the property.

The explosion damaged homes, overturned vehicles and shattered nearby buildings, according to local authorities and images broadcast from the site. Officials said the train’s engine and several coaches were derailed in the attack.

Markets in Quetta remained active with Eid shoppers and livestock traders, but residents in the affected neighborhoods said the destruction had made holiday preparations impossible.

“People are roaming in the markets for Eid shopping and for purchasing animals for sacrifice, but for us, you see our condition,” said Muhammad Haseeb, a private-sector employee whose house was damaged in the blast.

“We are busy cleaning up our destroyed house. The explosion destroyed our entire neighborhood including our house. There has been a great deal of financial and human loss,” he added.

Another resident, Farooq, said the attack had erased any sense of festivity for many affected families.
“Eid is for those whose houses are intact and who can go shopping,” he said. “We also had to do shopping for Eid, but now that is impossible, because our house is destroyed.”

Balochistan has witnessed a decades-long separatist insurgency led by militant groups accusing the federal government of exploiting the province’s natural resources without adequately sharing economic benefits with the local population. Pakistani authorities reject the allegations and say security operations are aimed at restoring stability and protecting development projects.

The Baloch Liberation Army has intensified attacks in recent years against security forces, rail infrastructure and Chinese-linked investments in the province. In March last year, militants hijacked the Jaffar Express passenger train and held hundreds of passengers hostage before security forces ended the siege.

The latest bombing underscores the persistent security challenges facing Pakistan as authorities attempt to contain militant violence while safeguarding major regional connectivity and energy projects tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The explosion occurred as the train was passing through the Chaman Pattak area of Quetta on its journey from Quetta to Peshawar. According to a senior official, an explosives-laden vehicle rammed one of the train’s carriages, triggering a powerful blast that derailed part of the train and caused extensive damage.

Army personnel were among those killed in the attack, while many of the wounded were transported to local hospitals for treatment. Officials said several passengers were traveling to celebrate the upcoming Eid holiday, scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

Images from the scene showed a mangled carriage lying on its side beside the tracks as rescue workers, volunteers and security personnel searched for survivors. Bloodied passengers were carried away on stretchers while armed forces secured the area and emergency teams worked through the wreckage.

Witnesses described scenes of panic following the blast. Resident Mohammad Rahim said he and his family were awakened by a loud explosion that shook nearby buildings. Another witness, Abdul Basit, said people immediately ran for cover as the force of the blast reverberated through the neighborhood.

Authorities said nearby vehicles were damaged and train windows were blown out by the explosion. A police official told AFP that investigators believe the improvised explosive device used in the attack weighed approximately 35 kilograms.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. Police and security agencies have launched an investigation into the incident.

The attack occurred in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area and one of its least developed regions. The province has long been the center of a separatist insurgency, with armed groups accusing the federal government of failing to adequately share the benefits of the region’s natural gas reserves and mineral wealth.

Security forces have faced persistent attacks in Balochistan in recent years, targeting military personnel, infrastructure and transportation networks. The province borders both Iran and Afghanistan and occupies a strategically important position along regional trade and energy corridors.

Iran’s judiciary said the two men, identified as Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour, were involved in armed attacks against security personnel and assassination plots in western parts of the country.

“Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour were hanged for membership in separatist terrorist groups, forming a group with the aim of disrupting the country’s security, armed rebellion through the formation of criminal groups, shooting and carrying out assassination attempts,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online news outlet reported.

The judiciary did not specify when the two men were arrested but said they had undergone training to become “leaders in the unrest.”

The executions are the latest in a broader increase in capital punishments since fighting erupted between Iran, the United States and Israel in February.
Iranian authorities have carried out multiple executions linked to anti-government unrest earlier this year, as well as cases involving alleged espionage and national security offenses.

Earlier this month, Tehran executed a man convicted of passing information to Israeli intelligence services. Iranian authorities had previously also executed an aerospace engineering student on similar espionage-related charges.

Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have repeatedly criticized Iran’s use of the death penalty. Rights groups rank Iran as the world’s second-highest executioner after China.

The executions come amid heightened domestic security measures and increasing political tensions following months of regional conflict and internal unrest.

The security forces arrived in the Kashmiri village of Sirnoo in the middle of the night and surrounded their targets: three separatist militants fighting Indian rule.

Early on the morning of Dec. 15, locals awakened to the sound of gunfire. As word of the clash spread, hundreds of young people converged on the area, throwing stones in an attempt to help the militants escape. Then the security forces opened fire on the crowd, killing seven and wounding dozens more. One of those killed was a 14-year-old boy. 

The killings marked the deadliest single encounter this year between security forces and civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir, part of India’s only Muslim-majority state where for three decades militants have fought either for independence or to join Pakistan. The deaths also form part of a grim trend: Violence is increasing in Kashmir as India’s ruthless pursuit of militants generates alienation and anger among Kashmiri youth. 

In 2018, the death toll for militants and security forces in Kashmir touched the highest point in a decade, according to official figures, with more than 324 killed. Human rights groups put the civilian fatalities at over 100. Almost no experts believe the situation will improve in the short term.

The incident in Sirnoo, in the district of Pulwama, illustrates the turn for the worse. As security forces carry out operations, they are frequently confronted by crowds of people who, rather than scattering, try to block their way.

There is now a “generation of people whose only encounter with India seems to be through the prism of the security forces,” said Amitabh Mattoo, a professor of international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a longtime observer of the Kashmir conflict.

A Himalayan region claimed by both India and Pakistan, Kashmir is divided by a heavily militarized frontier. The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir began in 1989 and has ebbed and flowed in the intervening years. Pakistan has lent active support to the militancy, much to India’s fury. The number of militants is thought to be only a few hundred today, far less than at the insurgency’s peak in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Still, recruitment by militant groups is on the rise.

“The militancy is becoming much more homegrown now,” said Ayjaz Ahmad Wani, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank based in Delhi. “The coming year may be more violent.”

Experts point to the 2016 killing of Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old militant commander who built a devoted following on social media, as a crucial turning point. In the weeks after Wani’s death, huge protests broke out across Kashmir.

In response, India used “excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries,” according to a report released in June by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. The report also cited India’s use of “inherently inaccurate and indiscriminate” pellet-firing shotguns as a means of crowd dispersal, which left hundreds blinded. India rejected the report’s findings.

The upturn in violence coincided with the absence of any meaningful political process to address Kashmiri grievances on the part of the federal government, whose embrace of Hindu chauvinism has distressed Muslims across India.

“New Delhi has created the opportunity for the escalation, which has been taken advantage of by Pakistan [and] by the separatists,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in Delhi.

Security officials in Kashmir say the increasing number of militants being killed is a sign of success. “We have launched more anti-militancy operations this year,” said Ravideep Sahai, a senior officer in the Central Reserve Police Force based in Srinagar. That also increases the risk to security personnel, he said: More operations lead to greater chances of fatal encounters.

Meanwhile, there are signs that militants are also changing their tactics. In recent months, they have abducted and killed police officers. In November, the Hizbul Mujahideen, a local militant group, circulated videos on social media showing the executions of alleged informers — a brutal move not seen before in Kashmir.

In the village of Sirnoo, members of Hizb ul-Mujahideen dug a trench in a nearby orchard, covered it with sheets of corrugated metal and used it as a hideout. The gun battle between the militants and the security forces lasted an hour, villagers said. When it was over, three militants and one soldier were dead.

“There was a hideout inside the orchard from which the militants came out to fire at the security forces. Why would the crowd go to the encounter site? They wanted to disrupt the operations,” said Muneer Ahmad Khan, a senior police officer. A police statement said that “a crowd came dangerously close” to the site of the encounter with militants and expressed regret at the civilian deaths. 

As the security forces retreated, groups of young men began to pelt them with stones, said Mushtaq Ahmad Wani, 28, who saw the clash move from the site of the gun battle with the militants to the village itself. 

Ghulam Mohidin Lone, 80, said the security forces fired into the air to disperse the crowds. Then a vehicle stopped outside his house, and soldiers began shooting. One bullet hit 18-year-old Owais Yusuf Najar, who Lone said was tending to another injured person. “He died on the spot,” Lone said. “His brain spilled out.”

Owais’s father, Mohammad Yusuf Najar, said his son was working as an auto mechanic and planned to continue his studies. “He was not a stone-thrower; he was not a militant. He had just gone to fetch water for an injured boy before he was killed,” Najar said. His death “is a wound which will never heal.”

Article first published on WashingtonPost.