Pakistan's army accuses India of sponsoring terror after 26 hostages were killed in a train attack

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Pakistan's army accuses India of sponsoring terror after 26 hostages were killed in a train attack

2025-03-15 01:00 Last Updated At：01:11

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s military accused neighboring India on Friday of sponsoring insurgents in the restive southwest as more survivors recounted their ordeal from the unprecedented attack by armed separatists this week that killed 26 passengers aboard a hijacked train.

The scope of the attack in Balochestan province underscored the struggles that Pakistan faces in efforts to reign in militant groups as attacks across the country escalated in recent years.

Accusing India and neighboring Afghanistan has been Islamabad's go-to strategy in the past. No evidence was offered for the latest accusation, which New Delhi promptly rejected.

In the attack Tuesday, members of the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army ambushed a train in a remote area, took about 400 people onboard hostage and triggered a firefight with security forces. The standoff lasted until late Wednesday, when the army said 33 hijackers were killed.

Oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and least populated province. Ethnic Baloch residents have long accused the central government of discrimination — a charge Islamabad denies.

The attack has drawn condemnation from the international community, including the United States, China, Turkey, Iran and Britain. On Friday, the members of the U.N. Security Council “condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” on the train in Balochistan.

“The members of the Security Council underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice,” the council said in a statement.

At a news conference in Islamabad, army spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif said Friday that “in this terrorist incident in Balochistan, and others before, the main sponsor is your eastern neighbor,” referring to India.

He offered no proof. It was the first time the BLA — which has been fighting for more autonomy if not outright independence and a greater share of the province’s resources — had hijacked a train, although it had attacked trains before.

Some assailants escaped, and a search operation was underway to find them, Sharif said. When asked by a reporter, Sharif said most of the fatalities on the train were security forces protecting the passengers and troops traveling to their home cities.

Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister of Balochistan, told reporters that Pakistan has “solid evidence” of India’s involvement in attacks but didn't share any specifics.

Sharif added that an Indian naval officer arrested in 2016 and convicted of espionage in Pakistan had worked for Indian intelligence to help the Baloch separatists and other militant groups. The officer, identified as Kulbhushan Jadhav, has been sentenced to death. Sharif did not link him to the train attack.

Pakistan and India are nuclear-armed rivals with a history of bitter relations. They have fought three wars since they gained independence in 1947 from colonial power Britain.

“We strongly reject the baseless allegations made by Pakistan,” India’s foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.

Earlier, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry claimed the train attack was orchestrated from Afghanistan. Kabul denied the accusation and said that the BLA has no presence in Afghanistan.

Still, Sharif claimed the train attackers had been in contact with handlers in Afghanistan and that they had weapons originating from both India and Afghanistan.

Pakistan has suspended all train services to and from Balochistan since Tuesday's attack. Sharif Ullah, a railway official, said repairs on the tracks, which were blown up by insurgents to stop the train, have not yet started.

Survivors have recounted their harrowing ordeal during the 36-hour hijacking.

Muhammad Farooq, a resident of Quetta, described how BLA stopped the train and ordered passengers to disembark.

“They checked identity cards and started killing people who worked for the armed forces,” Farooq said. Many passengers, he said, fled successfully while the hijackers were exchanging fire with Pakistani troops.

Mohammad Tanveer, who was traveling from Quetta, Balochistan's provincial capital, to the eastern city of Lahore, said he was wounded but managed to escape the hijackers. The attackers were looking for members of the military and security forces, and started killing them in small groups, one after another, he said.

College student Nair Husnain said he saw the militants go through the train, asking people to stand up and tying their hands before shooting them several times. They first killed soldiers, then minority Shiites and Punjabis. Balochs were spared.

Husnain, who also made his escape while the hijackers were exchanging fire with Pakistani security forces as they laid siege to the train, recounted how a mother traveling with three sons — all soldiers — had to watch as they were shot and killed.

“Those scenes are still before my eyes,” he said.

Sattar reported from Quetta, Pakistan. Associated Press writers Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Israel’s defense minister says Israel has “resumed fighting” in Gaza

2025-03-18 09:48 Last Updated At：09:51

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s defense minister says Israel has “resumed fighting” in Gaza and is vowing to press ahead until all remaining hostages are released.

In a brief statement, Defense Minister Israel Katz said “the gates of hell will open in Gaza” if hostages aren’t released.

“We will not stop fighting until all of our hostages are home and we have achieved all of the war goals,” he said.

Gaza’s ministry of health said at least 44 people were killed in the new wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday. Israel said it was striking Hamas targets in its heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, saying it was striking Hamas targets in its heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the strikes because of a lack of progress in ongoing talks to extend the ceasefire. It was not immediately clear if the operation was a one-time pressure tactic or if the 17-month-old war was being resumed altogether.

“This comes after Hamas repeatedly refused to release our hostages and rejected all offers it received from the U.S. presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, and from the mediators,” Netanyahu's office said.

Taher Nunu, a Hamas official, criticized the Israeli attacks. “The international community faces a moral test: either it allows the return of the crimes committed by the occupation army or it enforces a commitment to ending the aggression and war against innocent people in Gaza,” he said.

In Gaza, explosions could be heard at various locations and ambulances were arriving at Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.

The strikes came two months after a ceasefire was reached to pause the war. Over six weeks, Hamas released roughly three dozen hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

But since the first phase of the ceasefire ended two weeks ago, the sides have not been able to agree on a way forward with a second phase aimed at releasing the nearly 60 remaining hostages and ending the war altogether. Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to resume the war, and early this month cut off the entry of all food and aid deliveries into the besieged territory to put pressure on Hamas.

The war erupted with Hamas' Oct 7, 2023, cross-border attack, which killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Israel responded with a military offensive that killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced an estimated 90% of Gaza's population. The territory's Health Ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and militants, but says over half of the dead have been women and children.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” Netanyahu's office said.

The ceasefire had brought some relief to Gaza and allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to resume to what remained of their homes.

But the territory is coping with vast destruction, with no immediate plans to rebuild. A resumption of the war threatens to reverse any progress made in recent weeks toward halting Gaza's humanitarian crisis.

While the ceasefire largely halted the fighting, Israel has left troops in Gaza throughout the past two months and continued to strike targets, claiming that Palestinians were trying to carry out attacks or approaching troops in no-go zones.

A number of strikes earlier Monday killed a total of 10 people, according to Palestinian officials.

Two strikes in central Gaza hit around the urban refugee camp of Bureij. One struck a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians, killing a 52-year-old man and his 16-year-old nephew, according to officials at nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The Israeli military said it struck militants planting explosives.

An earlier strike killed three men in Bureij. The Israeli military said the men were trying to plant an explosive device in the ground near Israeli troops. Gaza’s Hamas-led government said the men were collecting firewood.

In Syria, meanwhile, Israel seized a zone in the south after the fall of longtime autocrat Bashar Assad in December. Israel says it is a preemptive security measure against the former Islamist insurgents who now run Syria, though their transitional government has not expressed threats against Israel.

Strikes in the southern Syrian city of Daraa killed three people and wounded 19 others, including four children, a woman and three civil defense volunteers, the Syrian civil defense agency said. It said two ambulances were damaged. Other strikes hit military positions near the city.

The Israeli military said it was targeting military command centers and sites in southern Syria that contained weapons and vehicles belonging to Assad’s forces. It said the materials’ presence posed a threat to Israel.

In Lebanon, Israel said it struck two members of the Hezbollah militant group in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor, who it said were “observation operatives.” Lebanon’s state news agency reported two people killed in the strike and two wounded.

The military later said it carried out further strikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, without specifying where. A U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect in late November ending the 14-month war between the two sides, and each side has repeatedly accused the other of violating the deal.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza began in mid-January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military says approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas.

Still, the deal has tenuously held without an outbreak of wide violence. The ceasefire’s first phase saw an exchange of some hostages held by Hamas in return for the freeing of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate the next steps in the ceasefire.

Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas instead wants to follow the ceasefire deal reached by the two sides, which calls for negotiations to begin on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, in which the remaining hostages would be released and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.

AP reporter Ghaith Alsayed in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.