AA / Islamabad – Istanbul / Ibrahim Hamdi
At least 26 people were killed on Saturday, according to a preliminary report, following a bomb explosion at a railway station in the province of Baluchistan, in the southwest of Pakistan.
Local media reported that the explosion occurred inside a ticket counter at the railway station in the city of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province.
In a statement to Anadolu Agency, senior police official Mohammed Akram said the explosion left at least 26 people dead and 46 injured.
Pakistani news channel Geo News TV reported, citing a police official, that the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber.
The Reuters agency reported for its part that a bomb had exploded on a platform of the main railway station in Balochistan.
On Saturday, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), one of the main Baloch separatist groups, claimed responsibility for the railway station blast. In a statement, the BLA said that one of its brigades targeted “a unit of the Pakistani army which was returning to Punjab via the railway station after training at the infantry school”, according to Reuters.
*The problem of terrorism in Pakistan
Pakistan is plagued by terrorist attacks, particularly in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, which border Afghanistan.
In both provinces, armed groups, under the pretext of defending the rights of the Pashtun and Baloch ethnic groups, are launching attacks against security forces and Pakistani civilians.
Islamabad claims that the Pakistani Taliban launch their attacks from Afghan territory, an accusation denied by the Afghan government.
Balochistan, a region shared between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, is considered the richest Pakistani province in natural resources, particularly in minerals (gold, copper) and natural gas, but it is less developed than the rest of the country.
*Translated from Arabic by Majdi Ismail
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