Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Friday that terrorists and their enablers and facilitators would be challenged both inside and outside the country, as he held a press conference in Islamabad related to the Jaffar Express attack.

The attack began on Tuesday afternoon when Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) terrorists ambushed the Peshawar-bound train carrying 440 passengers, opening fire and taking hostages. Security forces launched a two-day operation, concluding on Wednesday evening. Lt Gen Chaudhry confirmed that all 33 terrorists were neutralised, but no hostages were harmed in the final rescue phase. He also said the incident had changed the “rules of the game”.

During the presser — conducted alongside Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti — Lt Gen Chaudhry was asked whether there had been any changes or developments in the “rules” since his statement.

“Terrorists will be dealt with as they deserve, as those who drag innocent people out of buses and slaughter them, a group that divides people by ethnicity, have no connection to Baloch [ethnicity] or Islam.

“We will deal with them as they deserve. We will take them on, their facilitators, their abettors, whether inside Pakistan or outside Pakistan,” he responded.

DG ISPR then criticised the Indian media for spreading propaganda about the incident.

“The Indian media displayed fake footage of the incident to spread propaganda,” he said, as he showed some video clips on a screen to prove his point.

“They attempted to create a narrative by sharing AI-generated images and fake videos. They were leading an informational warfare.”

The DG ISPR said a “nexus” was working amid the situation to give legitimacy to the terrorists and their narrative.

Showing various clips of Indian officials and personalities discussing efforts to destabilise Balochistan, the DG ISPR said the Jaffar Express attack was a “continuation of the same policy”.

Most successful hostage operation

Providing details of the train attack and the ensuing rescue operation, he said that the terrorists had deliberately selected a remote location to conduct the attack where there were no telecommunication signals, adding that one group of hostages with women and children was kept inside the train, while the other travellers were brought outside and gathered on the ground.

“They operated in multiple groups, taking strategic positions on higher ground. After planting the improvised explosive device (IED), which disabled the train, they took the passengers hostage,” he detailed.

Lt Gen Chaudhry added that the terrorists had suicide bombers among their ranks.

The military media chief gave a detailed breakdown of the operation, describing each step. “Within 36 hours, in a remote area with inaccessible terrain and the presence of suicide bombers, our soldiers, the air force and the FC (Frontier Corps) successfully conducted the operation with professionalism and bravery.”

He added that the Special Services Group’s Zarrar Company had arrived in the area by midday and was monitoring the terrorists from a distance.

“They carried out a situational assessment,” he said. “They had to plan the operation very carefully because of suicide bombers, who could detonate their vests and kill the maximum number of people.”

DG ISPR said that Zarrar Company targeted the suicide bombers from a distance before moving in to secure the hostages, adding that the hostages, who were sitting in the open for 24 hours, took the opportunity to run to safety.

The media chief showed the audience drone footage of people running from the train.

“They ran in multiple directions, wherever they could go,” he said, adding that once they were safe, Zarrar Company operators cleared the train, moving from the front engine to the rear bogie.

Highlighting drone footage of the soldiers moving into the front engine, DG ISPR said, “They entered and cleared the front engine, killing any terrorists they encountered. They then cleared the whole train bogie by bogie.”

“Not even a single casualty was recorded among the hostages during this entire operation,” DG ISPR highlighted. “Despite their intentions, they (the terrorists) were unable to kill even a single hostage,” he added, clarifying that some passengers had embraced martyrdom before the operation.

“In terms of operations carried out on trains, this can very rightly be put out as the most successful hostage operation conducted,” DG ISPR said.

“A group of hostages was released based on their ethnic affiliations. Just as the CM said it, these terrorists have nothing to do with being Baloch, being Pakistani or being a Muslim.”

He added that there were logistical reasons for the terrorists to release some passengers since there were too many on the train for them to be able to control.

He said the terrorists tried to create a “false impression” of humanitarian values by claiming they had released some hostages.

DG ISPR further stated that a Zarrar Comapny soldier was injured by a sniper positioned on higher ground. “He (the sniper) was taken out, but our young soldier was injured.”

Pictures of terrorists killed during the operation and the weapons and equipment they were using were also shown to the audience. Additionally, DG ISPR also showed video clips of soldiers during the operation itself, along with video messages from rescued hostages.

‘No intelligence failure’

Questioned if the attack represented an intelligence failure, the DG ISPR said that Balochistan presented a “very challenging intelligence environment”, adding that agencies were working round the clock to find leads and preempt attacks.

“I don’t agree with the term ‘intelligence failure’ because behind this are thousands of intelligence successes you don’t hear about — the incidents that never happened because our intelligence detected and neutralised them.”

Speaking to the reporter who raised the question, the DG said that as a journalist, one must be getting many leads on stories, but it was impossible to cover all the stories which were unfolding in Pakistan right now.

“It’s not possible,” he said.

When it came to the work of an intelligence agency, he said, what was normally seen and pointed out was failure.

“The intelligence game is such that you don’t thump your chest on your successes.

“Firstly, we need to realise that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies — in a very challenging hostile environment — are trying their level best,” he said, adding that one should be careful to characterise such incidents as an intelligence failure.

He said that the terrorists operating in the region were not the only threat to the intelligence agencies as they were also backed by the complete intelligence support of their sponsors.

The DG ISPR added that the intelligence agencies knew that in this area, a threat existed, adding that it was because of the intelligence agencies that the security forces were able to respond in a successful manner.

26 passengers martyred

Giving a breakdown of the figures in the incident, the DG ISPR said 33 terrorists were killed, while the count of martyred passengers had been updated to 26 from the previous figure of 21.

He said 354 passengers were successfully identified and rescued, bringing the total passenger count to 380.

Questioned later on about the number of fatalities and discrepancies with figures reported in international media, DG ISPR reiterated that there were 26 fatalities with the potential for more since he said 37 of the 354 recovered hostages were injured.

Chaudhry added that 18 of the 26 martyred belonged to the army or FC, three were linked to the railways and other departments, while the remaining five were civilians.

He said the operational fatalities—those not aboard the train—included three FC personnel killed at the picket, one FC soldier martyred on Wednesday morning, and another stationed for security duty on the train.

Speaking about the rise in terrorism, the DG ISPR said the pace of implementation of the National Action Plan’s 14 points needed to be considered first.

He said law enforcement agencies conducted 59,775 intelligence-based operations, both major and minor, in 2024. So far in 2025, 11,654 IBOs have been carried out.

“This year, we are averaging 180 IBOs per day,” he added. Meanwhile, around 1,250 terrorists were “sent to hell” in 2024 and 2025, while 563 security personnel were martyred in the line of duty, he said.

‘Purely evil forces’

Taking over the press conference, CM Bugti denounced the attack on unarmed people, saying that the “so-called fight against the state” was a farce, driven by purely evil forces. Therefore, the perpetrators should only be referred to as “terrorists.”

“We’re in an intelligence-driven war waged against the state of Pakistan by RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) and other hostile agencies through Afghanistan, especially because Afghan soil is being used against us,” Bugti said.

Islamabad has repeatedly demanded that Kabul take action against the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terrorist factions using Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan. Kabul denies the allegations.

Adding to the comment, the military’s media chief said the train incident was yet another that could be traced back to Afghanistan, noting that the terrorists remained in contact with their handlers there throughout.

“It is part of an ongoing process,” he said, adding that the groups involved were composed of Afghan nationals.

Echoing Chaudhry’s point, Bugti said the past policy of “appeasement” followed by some previous governments toward terrorist groups had allowed key figures to be released, enabling them to reestablish insurgent camps against the state.

Bugti said the security forces had the capacity and capability to “handle this mess very soon”, saying that such a surge was not a new thing.

In 2021, former prime minister Imran Khan had offered a general pardon to the TTP, provided the banned group laid down weapons. In 2023, Imran admitted that his government had planned to relocate at least 5,000 TTP fighters and their families, totaling around 35,000 people, but the plan fell through as provinces refused to bear the cost.

BLA attacks

Balochistan has witnessed an uptick in terrorist attacks over the past year. In November 2024, at least 26 people were killed and 62 injured after a suicide blast ripped through a Quetta Railway Station.

In 2024, the banned BLA emerged as a key perpetrator of terrorist violence in Pakistan, according to a report by Islamabad-based think tank Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS).

In August last year, dozens of militants affiliated with BLA launched numerous attacks across the province, in which at least 50 people, including 14 security men, lost their lives. In response, security forces had neutralised 21 militants.

Earlier that month, then-Panjgur deputy commissioner Zakir Baloch was shot dead on the Quetta-Karachi National Highway, with CM Bugti stating that the BLA was the group behind it.

In October 2024, a suicide bombing near Karachi airport killed two Chinese nationals and a Pakistani citizen, for which two BLA suspects were sent to jail on judicial remand while a probe body was formed as well.

The group also claimed responsibility for the Quetta railway suicide bombing in November last year, in which at least 26 people, including 16 security personnel, lost their lives, and 61 others were injured.

Pakistan designated the BLA as a terrorist organisation in April 2006 after the group repeatedly attacked security personnel.

In January this year, a former BLA member said during a press conference that the banned group “brainwashed average citizens into thinking a certain way about Balochistan and resorting to terrorist activities.”

Last month, the BLA claimed responsibility for an attack in Balochistan’s Barkhan, where seven Punjab-bound passengers were offloaded from a bus and shot dead.

In earlier grand-scale hijackings in the country, one that particularly comes to mind was in 1994, when three armed militants from Afghanistan took control of a school bus near Peshawar and took around 70 children hostage. The bus was driven to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad, where units of elite commandoes gunned them down the next day.

Taken From DAWN News

https://www.dawn.com/news/1897846/will-take-on-terrorists-enablers-both-inside-and-outside-pakistan-dg-ispr