Sawt Falasteen - Over 100 hostages freed in deadly Pakistan train siege

It was not immediately clear how many people remained on board the train as security forces continued operations overnight.

Before seizing the train Tuesday afternoon, militants blew up the railway track, forcing it to a halt in a remote area.

"People began hiding under the seats in panic. The militants separated the men from the women. They allowed me and my family to go because I told them I'm a heart patient," 49-year-old Allahditta told AFP from a makeshift hospital at the train station in Mach.

"I was on the train with my father and brother when militants took us hostage. They let me go but they are still there," added a 32-year-old woman, who asked not to be named.

Interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said security forces had rescued over 100 people, adding that 16 "terrorists" had been killed.

Security sources told AFP that the "clearance operation is ongoing", after reporting heavy gunfire between militants and security forces.

The assault was immediately claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group behind rising violence in the province which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway government official in Quetta, the capital of the province, earlier told AFP that "over 450 passengers onboard" had been taken hostage.

Some of the passengers were freed by the militants and walked for hours to reach the nearest railway station, from which they boarded other trains to Mach.

The driver of the train, a police officer and soldier were killed in the assault, according to paramedic Nazim Farooq and railway official Muhammad Aslam, both at Mach railway station.

- Decades-long insurgency -

In a statement, the BLA said gunmen bombed the railway track before storming aboard the train.

"The militants swiftly took control of the train and have taken all passengers hostage," said the statement released to media.

The incident happened around 1:00 pm (0800 GMT) in rural Sibi district, near to a city station where the train had been due to stop.

The train had left Quetta for Peshawar, in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa -- a more than 30-hour journey -- at around 9:00 am.

The area is a mountainous region making it easier for militants to have hideouts and plan attacks.

Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan, which militant groups claim is being exploited by outsiders, with wealth from its natural resources syphoned off with little benefit to the local population.

But violence has soared in the western border regions with Afghanistan, from north to south, since the Taliban took back power in 2021.

Pakistan accuses the Taliban government in Kabul of offering safe haven to militants to plan attacks. The Taliban government denies the charge.

The BLA have launched larger scale attacks in recent months, including holding a motorway overnight and identifying travellers from outside the province and shooting them dead.

BLA militants also killed seven Punjabi travellers in February after they were ordered off a bus.

In November, the BLA claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta's main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.

Last year was the deadliest year in almost a decade, with more than 1,600 people killed in attacks in Pakistan, mostly in the border regions, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group.

Z.AbuSaud--SF-PST