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The attack, which coincided with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China, was aimed at sending China a message that its investments in Balochistan are not safe.
Screenshot of a Baloch Liberation Army video featuring Bilal Shahwani alias Sahin, of the Majeed Brigade, who carried out the suicide attack on a train at Quetta in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on May 24, 2026.
On May 24, a suicide bomber drove a vehicle laden with explosives into a passenger train in Quetta, killing at least 30 people and leaving more than 50 injured. Most of the victims of the attack, which was the deadliest in Pakistan so far this year, were security personnel and their family members.
The separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack. The BLA is South Asia’s most organized and lethal insurgent group, which has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years from a remote, tribal insurgency into a modern, urban guerrilla movement comprising several specialized units. It has tapped into ethno-nationalist sentiments, socioeconomic grievances, and Baloch society’s anger toward the state’s highhanded policy to spread its tentacles across the province’s tribal-urban divide.
