Thirty-six hours after one of the most audacious militant assaults in Pakistan in years, the country’s military declared on Wednesday that it had ended a deadly siege by a separatist group on a passenger train in a restive southwestern province.

       The attack, carried out by the Baloch Liberation Army, or B.L.A., unfolded Tuesday afternoon as the Jaffar Express, carrying more than 400 passengers, wound through the province’s rugged and isolated mountains. Gunmen opened fire, forced the train to halt and took hostages.

       On Wednesday night, Pakistan’s military said that security forces had carried out a rescue operation that secured the hostages’ release and left 33 militants dead.

       Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif, the army’s spokesman, told a local broadcaster, Dunya News, that at least 21 passengers had died in the separatists’ assault on the train. He said that no hostages had been killed in the security forces’ rescue operation. The military’s account could not be independently verified.

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       General Sharif said that four paramilitary soldiers affiliated with the government had died when militants ambushed them near a checkpoint. He provided no details on casualties among other security forces. Some passengers, he said, fled in different directions during the chaos and were being accounted for.

       The B.L.A. insisted that it was still holding more than 100 hostages and claimed to have killed dozens of soldiers. That account, too, could not be confirmed. The hijacking took place in an area with little or no cell or internet service, making it difficult to gather independent information.

       The New York Times

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