PM expresses satisfaction over progress as IMF in Pakistan for first review of loan program

ISLAMABAD: Separatist militant group the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed that they had taken hostages during an attack on a train carrying hundreds of people, including paramilitary troops, in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday and threatened to kill them.
The BLA is the strongest of a number of insurgent groups long operating in the area bordering Afghanistan and Iran, a mineral-rich region that is home to Beijing’s investment in Gwadar deep water port and other projects.
In what was previously a low-level insurgency, the militants have in recent months stepped up their activities using new tactics to inflict high death and injury tolls and target Pakistan’s military.
Here are facts about the group, which has also targeted Chinese interests.
WHAT ARE THE BLA’S GOALS?
The BLA seeks independence for Balochistan, a province located in Pakistan’s southwest and bordering Afghanistan to the north and Iran to the west.
It is the biggest of several ethnic insurgent groups that have battled the federal government for decades, saying it unfairly exploits Balochistan’s rich gas and mineral resources.
The insurgents have been fighting to lay a claim to local resources which they say belong to their people.
Balochistan’s mountainous border region serves as a safe haven and training ground for the Baloch insurgents and Islamist militants.
HOW HAS IT BECOME MORE LETHAL?
The BLA shocked the country’s security establishment when it stormed army and navy bases in 2022.
It has deployed women suicide bombers, including in an attack on Chinese nationals at a university in Karachi and a bombing in southwest Balochistan.
An umbrella group of several Baloch ethnic groups said last week that it had convened all factions in a bid to unite them under a unified military structure.
A dormant BLA splinter group called BLA (AZAD) became active in recent weeks.
WHAT ARE THE BLA’S TARGETS?
The BLA often targets infrastructure and security forces in Balochistan, but has also truck in other areas — most notably the southern port city of Karachi.
The insurgents target Pakistan’s army and Chinese interests, in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad to exploit the province.
Militants have killed Chinese citizens working in the region and attacked Beijing’s consulate in Karachi.
The BLA, separately, was also at the center of tit-for-tat strikes last year between Iran and Pakistan over what they called militant bases on each other’s territory, which brought the neighbors close to war.
BALOCHISTAN’S SIGNIFICANCE
Balochistan is an important part of China’s $65 billion investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a wing of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative.
It is home to key mining projects, including Reko Diq, run by mining giant Barrick Gold (ABX.TO), and believed to be one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines.
China also operates a gold and copper mine in the province.
The decades-old insurgency has continued to keep the province of some 15 million people unstable and created security concerns around Pakistan’s plans to access untapped resources.
It is Pakistan’s largest province by area, but smallest by population. Balochistan also has a long Arabian Sea coastline, not far from the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane.
Hundreds of Baloch activists, many of them women, have protested in Islamabad and Balochistan over alleged abuses by security forces — accusations the government denies.
Islamabad accuses India and Afghanistan of backing the militants to damage Pakistan’s relations with China, a charge both countries deny.

KARACHI: Renowned Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari has refused to accept the prestigious Wolf Prize 2025 in the field of architecture over the “continuing genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza, she confirmed on Tuesday.
The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel since 1978 to living scientists and artists for their “achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people.”
It is awarded in six fields, including agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, physics, and an arts prize that rotates between architecture, music, painting and sculpture.
Lari, who works in the intersection of architecture and social justice, wrote to Wolf Foundation that she was grateful for the honor, but could not accept it “in view of the unfortunate continuing genocide in Gaza.”
“I declined the award because of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a reason I explicitly stated in my response to them. Given the current situation in Gaza, accepting the award was out of the question,” she told Arab News.

The development came as Israeli fire killed eight people in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, Palestinian officials said on Tuesday, even as a fragile ceasefire with Hamas has largely held. Israel last week suspended supplies of goods and electricity to the territory of more than 2 million Palestinians as it tries to pressure Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire, which ended on March 1.
Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas instead wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.
Israel’s war on Gaza, which began after Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children. The 15-month Israeli military campaign has laid waste to the Gaza Strip, destroying hospitals, schools and entire residential neighborhoods.
“Declining the award was the very least I could do,” Lari told Arab News.

Lari is known for her socially conscious works on humanitarian grounds and for catering to the spatial needs of Pakistan’s most marginalized communities. She co-founded the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan with her husband, Suhail Zaheer Lari, in 1980, and has constructed over 50,000 sustainable self-built shelters and over 80,000 ecological cooking stoves using natural materials like mud, lime, and bamboo.
The philanthropic architect, who advocates that traditional construction techniques can lead to low-impact carbon-neutral buildings, was awarded the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects Royal Gold Medal in 2023 for her humanitarian work.