On November 29, 2025, an improvised explosive device (IED) planted on the railway track detonated shortly before a train was expected to arrive in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. “Around one and a half feet of the track was blown up in the blast,” a railway official said.
On November 24, 2025, the Peshawar-bound Jaffar Express escaped an armed attack in the Bolan Pass area of Kachhi District in Balochistan. Railway officials said the Jaffar Express departed Quetta for its destination, Peshawar, on schedule, and after crossing Mach station, near Aabigum, suspected Baloch insurgents opened fire on the train from the nearby mountains. Security personnel, including Railways Police travelling on the train, immediately retaliated. However, after a brief exchange, the insurgents escaped from the area. It was the sixth attack on the Jaffar Express between Quetta and Sibi during just two months.
On November 16, 2025, the Jaffar Express escaped a bomb attack in the Shaheed Abdul Aziz Bullo area of Nasirabad District. According to Police officials, unidentified attackers had planted an explosive device on the railway track in the Shaheed Abdul Aziz Bullo area to target the Peshawar-bound train that was travelling from Quetta, and later detonated it. However, the train passed the area safely, and no loss of life was reported. Railway officials said a portion of the track was damaged due to the blast, as a result of which railway traffic between Quetta and the rest of the country was suspended. The Baloch Republican Guards (BRG) ‘spokesperson’ Dostain Baloch claimed responsibility for the attack.
On October 29, 2025, suspected Baloch insurgents attacked the Jaffar Express in the Dera Murad Jamali town of Nasirabad District, firing multiple shots and launching four rockets at the passenger train. However, Security Forces (SFs) retaliation forced the insurgents to escape. In the attack, several train compartments sustained minor damage, but no casualties were reported.
On October 24, 2025, a Pakistan Railways worker was killed in a bomb blast near a railway crossing in Dera Murad Jamali area of Nasirabad District. The explosion occurred near the Pat Feeder Canal bridge, shortly after the pilot engine of the Jaffar Express had crossed the railway track. The train and pilot engine, however, narrowly escaped the damage, though the blast damaged the railway track and claimed the life of a worker.
On October 7, 2025, at least seven people were injured after a blast on a railway track derailed four bogies of the Jaffar Express near the Sultan Kot village in the Shikarpur District of Sindh, while it was en route from Rawalpindi to Quetta via Jacobabad. The BRG claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement issued by BRG ‘spokesperson’ Dostain Baloch, the group declared that its fighters targeted the train because it was carrying personnel of the “occupying Pakistani Army.” The spokesperson claimed that several soldiers were killed and injured in the explosion.
On September 23, twelve people, including women and children, were injured as a blast derailed six bogies of the Jaffar Express near Spezand town in the Dasht tehsil (revenue unit) of Mastung District in Balochistan. Muhammad Kashif, Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division public relations officer, disclosed that a railway track was blown up with explosives in Spezand town, derailing six bogies. “The train was coming from Peshawar to Quetta and there were 270 passengers on board,” he added.
With a rise in terrorist attacks over the past few years, Pakistan, especially Balochistan has seen a series of incidents with Baloch insurgents attacking and blowing up train tracks, targeting the country’s transport infrastructure in order to hurt the economy where it inflicted most hurt for Pakistan. While the Jaffar Express has been particularly targeted repeatedly, the wider Rail network across Pakistan has also come under recurring attack. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the current year, 2025, had already recorded 18 attacks on the Railways, so far (data till November 30, 2025), out of which 14 were reported from Balochistan with 66 fatalities, while the remaining four attacks were reported in Sindh. Meanwhile, in 2024, only two incidents of such attacks on the Railways (all in Balochistan), were recorded, in which 27 persons were killed.
Railways in Pakistan have been attacked on at least 176 occasions since March 2000 (data till November 30, 2025). Of these, 166 attacks have been recorded in just two Provinces: Sindh and Balochistan, with 93 incidents in Balochistan and 74 in Sindh. 197 fatalities have been recorded in these166 attacks, with 161 killed in Balochistan and 26 in Sindh. While six attacks on railway infrastructures were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one attack was recorded in Punjab in which 12 persons were killed.
The major concentration of attacks on the Railways, which primarily occurred in Balochistan and adjacent Districts of Sindh – is the result of separatists operating there, and engaging in different patterns of economic subversion. Attacking the Railways is one of several such tactics. While Baloch nationalist groupings like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Baloch Republican Army (BRA) and BRG have been engaged in attacks on Railways inside Balochistan, Sindhi groups, such as the Sindhudesh Liberation Army (SLA), which is fighting for the establishment of an independent Sindhu Desh, liaise with Baloch groups in the fight against the Federation.
2025, so far, has already crossed the record for fatalities in such incidents of all previous years, with 18 attacks resulting in 66 fatalities. Between 2010 and 2014, the worst time for the Pakistan Railways, with 104 attacks on trains, tracks and stations, resulted in the deaths of 65 persons, mostly passengers, and injuries to more than another hundred.
A single incident of train hostage-taking on March 11, 2025, changed the whole equation of train attacks in Pakistan. On March 11, BLA cadres ambushed the Jaffar Express at the Dhadar area of Bolan Pass in the Bolan District of Balochistan, halting the train and taking around 400 passengers hostage. With much confusion about the fatalities in the initial hour, on March 14, the Government confirmed that 31 persons, including 23 Security Forces (SFs) personnel, lost their lives. The Director General (DG) of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry confirmed that all 33 terrorists involved in the attack on the Jaffar Express were killed.
However, on March 14, BLA announced that it had executed all 214 Pakistani military hostages taken during the seizure of the Jaffar Express train. The group accused the Pakistani state of ignoring its demands and refusing to engage in serious negotiations for the hostages’ release. In a statement released to the media, BLA ‘spokesperson’ Jeeyand Baloch claimed that the group had given the Pakistani Army a 48-hour ultimatum to negotiate a prisoner exchange. However, he asserted that Pakistan, displaying “traditional stubbornness and military arrogance,” avoided meaningful dialogue and failed to “acknowledge the situation on the ground. As a result of this stubbornness, all 214 hostages have been executed”.
The Jaffar Express attacks reflect a shift in insurgent tactics and intensity, to inflict fear on the state, rather than just impose economic and infrastructural losses. These attacks are a multi-layered assault: derailments caused by IEDs or track sabotage not only lead to a halt of goods’ transportation for days, spoiling perishable goods and disrupting supply chains, but also demonstrates the state’s inability to protect one of its most visible and important infrastructure projects.
This tactical shift has been particularly noticeable over the last year, after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the ticket counter of the Quetta Railway Station on November 9, 2024, killing at least 31 persons, including 17 SF personnel, and injuring more than 60, including 46 SF personnel. The Majeed Brigade of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack. “This morning, a Fidayee attack was carried out on a Pakistani Army unit at Quetta Railway Station as they were returning via Jaffar Express after completing a course at the Infantry School,” BLA ‘spokesperson’ Jeeyand Baloch stated. According to the BLA, the suicide bomber Rafiq Bizenjo targeted Army personnel from multiple regiments, including the Punjab Regiment, Northern Light Infantry, Sindh Regiment, Frontier Force, Baloch Regiment, and Azad Kashmir Regiment. The soldiers had recently completed training at the School of Infantry and Tactics in Quetta, Jeeyand Baloch added.
The Jaffar Express, which runs between Quetta city in Balochistan and Rawalpindi city in Punjab, has been targeted repeatedly primarily because of its route through the highly sensitive and conflict-prone provinces of Balochistan and Sindh. The importance of the Jaffar Express for Balochistan is multifaceted, touching on economic, social, logistical, and symbolic dimensions. It is a vital lifeline for Balochistan, the largest province by area, and one of its least developed. The Jaffar Express provides a crucial and relatively affordable link to the country’s economic heartland. Attacks on the train constitute a form of retaliation by the insurgent groups, even as they prove their resilience, and highlight the brutality of the state’s counter-insurgency campaigns and enforced disappearances of Baloch civilians. Attacks on the Jaffar Express are a direct challenge by the Baloch insurgents, to the state’s authority, in their fight against injustice and enduring grievances.
