Pakistan suspends railway services in the country’s southwest after deadly train station bombing

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s railways suspended all train services on Monday to and from a restive southwestern province where a suicide bombing at a train station over the weekend killed 26 people, including soldiers and railway staff.

The train services would be suspended for four days for security reasons, according to a statement from Pakistan Railways.

The attack, claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army struck the station in the city of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, on Saturday. At lest 62 people were also wounded in the bombing, officials said.

The provincial government also declared a three-day mourning period in solidarity with the families of the victims and said that security has been stepped up and vowed to hit back “with full force” against the separatists, according to Sarfraz Bugti, the province’s chief minister.

Bugti spoke after meeting with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who traveled to Quetta on Sunday to be briefed about the situation. Naqvi’s office said in a statement that authorities would “take decisive steps to crush the terrorists” and support the local Balochistan government in dealing with the “scourge of terrorism.”

Train services are a major part of Balochistan’s economy — hundreds of people travel to and from Quetta to other parts of the country every day. Trains also transport food and other items.

Saturday’s attack took place when about 100 passengers were waiting for a train to leave the Quetta station for the garrison city of Rawalpindi, police had said. In its claim of responsibility, the separatist BLA said it targeted Pakistani troops.

The attack was the deadliest since August, when separatists killed more than 50 people in multiple coordinated attacks on passengers buses, police and security forces across Balochistan.

The oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but also least populated province. It is a hub for the country’s ethnic Baloch minority whose members say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.

Balochistan has for years been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with several separatist groups staging attacks, targeting mainly security forces in their quest for independence. The province also has an array of militant groups that are active there.

The separatists also target Chinese nationals working in Pakistan as part of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, an initiative that has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and is a major part of China’s push to play a larger role in global affairs

Last month, a suicide bomber dispatched by the BLA targeted a convoy with Chinese nationals outside the country’s largest airport in the port city of Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, killing two Chinese workers and wounding eight people.

Authorities subsequently claimed they arrested the mastermind of that Oct. 6 attack in a raid in Balochistan.

Ziaul Hassan, the interior minister in southern Sindh province, told reporters on Monday that police arrested also three other suspects, including a woman, over their direct involvement in the Karachi attack.

He identified the alleged mastermind only as Javed, without explaining if that was a real name, a pseudonym or why he wasn’t giving a full name. Hassan also said more arrests were planned and that police were assisted by security camera footage in their investigation.

According to the minister, the car used in the Oct. 6 attack was brought to the city from Balochistan province.

Hassan said an investigation was still underway over last week’s shooting attack that wounded two Chinese workers at a textile mill in Karachi.

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Associated Press writer Muhammad Farooq in Karachi, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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