Pakistan Railways has cancelled the Jaffar Express service from Quetta to Peshawar, officials have said, as train operations from Balochistan’s capital remain disrupted following last week’s attack on a military shuttle train. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a group of armed Baloch rebels which has been fighting the Pakistani state for an independent Balochistan, had claimed responsibility for the attack.
Incidentally, Jaffar Express is an important train that caters to Pakistani Army personnel, police and the other security forces. As such, it has remained a high priority target for the BLA which has attacked it at least twice using suicide bombers. On May 24, a shuttle train carrying military personnel from Quetta Cantt to main Quetta railway station was blown up by suicide bomber named Bilal Shahwani, according to a report of The Balochistan Post.
For most observers, the increasing frequency and scale of attacks in Balochistan indicate that the BLA and other armed organizations now possess the ability to strike not only remote regions but also major urban centers and critical infrastructure. Repeated attacks on railway networks have raised serious concerns regarding security and have intensified questions surrounding Pakistan’s control and authority in the region.
BLA Targeted Pakistan Military Personnel
Most passengers of Jaffar Express on that day were either military personnel or their family members. These passengers were scheduled to travel to their hometowns in Punjab or Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces for Eid celebrations. Incidentally, on normal days, this train completes its journey of around 1,650 km from Peshawar to Quetta in a little over 34 hours.
Railway officials said the Quetta to Peshawar service had been suspended and will not operate, citing what they described as unavoidable circumstances. The officials did not say anything as to when this train service will be restored, it at all.
They said the Jaffar Express travelling from Peshawar to Quetta would be returned from Jacobabad, while the Bolan Mail service to Karachi and the Chaman Passenger train had also been suspended. This clearly indicates how the BLA has succeeded in creating fear among the security forces. If a train service catering mainly to military personnel cannot be operated, it clearly shows how unsafe train journeys can be for common people.
“The operation was designed with such meticulous precision in terms of military science and timing that if there had been a variance of even five minutes earlier or later in its planning and execution, targeting the enemy forces would have been impossible,” a BLA statement said.
The suspension comes after the May 24 attack near Chaman Phatak in Quetta, where a shuttle train carrying Pakistani military personnel from Quetta Cantonment to Quetta Railway Station was targeted. The bogies in the shuttle train were to be attached to the Jaffar Express for the onward journey.
Presenting Military Deaths as Civilian Casualties
The BLA claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement, the group had said the operation was carried out jointly by its Majeed Brigade and intelligence wing, ZIRAB. Their target was a military shuttle train operating between the cantonment and the railway station to send a message to the occupying forces.
The BLA rejected official accounts describing the casualties as civilians, accusing Pakistani state media and officials of trying to present military casualties as civilian deaths. The statement said the Pakistani army was attempting to conceal what the group described as a “humiliating intelligence failure” and the breach of the fortified cantonment security perimeter by building what it called “a false narrative of victimhood before the world”.
“The BLA completely rejects this fabricated narrative with full political and moral force… the targeted train was not a regular passenger train but a specific military shuttle dedicated solely to transporting military personnel from the restricted zone of the Cantonment,” the statement said.
The BLA also said attacks on civilians and non-combatants were against its policy, describing its targets as limited to the military, its subsidiary institutions, the administration, alleged state-backed armed groups and projects it accuses of exploiting Baloch resources.
Way Beyond Traditional Guerrilla Tactics
The group framed Shahwani’s role as evidence of what it called the BLA’s “institutional evolution and ideological superiority”, saying the decision of an experienced field commander to volunteer for a “fidayee” mission showed the organisation had moved beyond traditional guerrilla methods.
“This choice demonstrates that the Baloch national resistance has advanced far beyond traditional guerrilla methods into a modern, scientific, and formal military structure…” the statement said, adding that commanders were prioritising “collective national objectives over individual material roles and life itself”.
The BLA said Shahwani’s action would be preserved as “a universal principle of the political and military struggle of oppressed people”, adding that the “modern material network” of an “occupying state could only be countered through deep ideological discipline, intelligence access, eternal sacrifice, and strategic resolve”.
The BLA said the attack showed that Pakistan, “no matter how high it raises walls or alters security protocols on Baloch soil”, could not stop what it described as the resolve of the Baloch national army.
“Our organized, principled, and ideological war will continue with full intensity until the establishment of complete Baloch sovereignty and final independence on Baloch soil,” the statement concluded.
The BLA identified the attacker as Bilal Shahwani, also known as Saahin, and said 82 Pakistani military personnel were killed and more than 121 injured.
Incidentally, for the past some time Pakistan has started calling BLA as ‘Fitna al-Hindustan’, seeking to put the blame for its attacks on India. This is nothing but a crude attempt to divert attention from the Baloch people’s struggle against the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani state.
The May 24 blast was the third major deadly attack claimed by the BLA against trains or railway facilities it says were carrying or used by Pakistani military personnel. The first major attack was carried in November 2024 at Quetta Railway Station and in March 2025, Jaffar Express was hijacked in Bolan.
