Foreign News
More than 100 passengers rescued from Pakistan train attack
Armed militants in Pakistan’s Balochistan region have attacked a train carrying more than 400 passengers and taken a number of them hostage, military sources told the BBC on Tuesday.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) fired at the Jaffar Express Train as it travelled from Quetta to Peshawar.
The separatist group said it had bombed the track before storming the train in the remote Sibi district, claiming the train was under its control.
At least 16 militants have been killed and 104 passengers rescued as of Wednesday morning, local media reported.
Among those rescued are 17 injured passengers, who have been hospitalised for treatment.
The militants had threatened to kill hostages if authorities did not release Baloch political prisoners within 48 hours, according to local reports.
The rescue operation is ongoing.
There were reports of “intense firing” at the train, a Balochistan government spokesman told local newspaper Dawn on Tuesday.
A senior police official said it “remains stuck just before a tunnel surrounded by mountains”, AFP news agency reports.
A senior army official confirmed to the BBC that there were more than 100 army personnel travelling from Quetta on the train.
The Pakistani authorities – as well as several Western countries, including the UK and US – have designated the BLA as a terrorist organisation.
It has waged a decades-long insurgency to gain independence and has launched numerous deadly attacks, often targeting police stations, railway lines and highways.
On Tuesday, the group warned of “severe consequences” if an attempt was made to rescue those it is holding.
“I can’t find the words to describe how we managed to escape. It was terrifying,” Muhammad Bilal, one of the freed hostages, told AFP news agency.
Allahditta, another passenger, said he was allowed to go because of his heart condition. The 49-year-old recalled how people “began hiding under the seats in panic” when the attackers stormed the train.
A local railway official in Quetta earlier told the BBC that a group of 80 passengers – 11 children, 26 women and 43 men – had managed to disembark the train and walk to the nearest railway station, Panir.
The official said the group was made up of locals from the province of Balochistan.
One man, whose brother-in-law was still being held on the train, described an agonising wait. He said he had tried to drive to the area, but many of the roads were closed.
Meanwhile, anxious families of passengers were trying to get information about their loved ones from the counter at Quetta railway station.
The son of one passenger, Muhammad Ashraf, who left Quetta for Lahore on Tuesday morning, told BBC Urdu he had not been able to contact his father.
Another relative said he was “frantic with worry” about his cousin and her small child, who were travelling from Quetta to Multan to pick up a family member.
“No one is telling me what’s happening or if they’re safe,” Imran Khan told Reuters news agency.
Officials say they are yet to communicate with anyone on the train.
The area has no internet and mobile network coverage, officials told the BBC.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province and the richest in terms of natural resources, but it is the least developed.
[BBC]
US President Donald Trump has revoked security clearances from his previously defeated Democratic election rivals, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, as well as a number of other top former officials.
The move comes after Trump said in February he was revoking security clearance for his predecessor Joe Biden. He confirmed that move in the latest announcement, adding that he was also revoking the security clearance of “any other member” of the Biden family.
“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” Trump’s memorandum read.
Former US presidents and top security officials usually keep their security clearance as a courtesy.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Republican lawmakers Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were also on the list of those who lost their security clearances – as well as Fiona Hill, a former Russian affairs adviser in the first Trump administration.
The other names were: Jake Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Mark Zaid, Norman Eisen, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Andrew Weissmann and Alexander Vindman.
Trump had earlier pulled security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials whom he accused of meddling in the 2020 election in Biden’s favour without providing evidence.
In 2021, Biden – serving president at the time – barred his defeated rival Trump from having access to intelligence briefings citing his “erratic behaviour”.
[BBC]
Flights at the United Kingdom’s Heathrow Airport have resumed after a fire knocked out its power supply and shut Europe’s busiest airport for the day, throwing the plans of tens of thousands of travellers into chaos.
London’s main airport said late on Friday that its teams had worked tirelessly to reopen after it suffered a power failure due to a fire at an electrical substation supplying the facility.
The flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 earlier said the closure would affect at least 1,351 flights.
Heathrow said there would be a limited number of flights on Friday, mostly focused on relocating aircraft and bringing planes into London.
“Tomorrow morning, we expect to be back in full operation, to 100 percent operation as a normal day,” Heathrow Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye said. “What I’d like to do is to apologise to the many people who have had their travel affected. … We are very sorry about all the inconvenience.”
Counterterrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police are leading the investigation into the cause of Thursday night’s fire. The force said there was “no indication of foul play” but “we retain an open mind at this time.”
The London Fire Brigade later said police believed the fire to be nonsuspicious.
Heathrow is one of the most globally connected airports and regularly ranks among the top five busiest gateways worldwide.
The airport serves more than 200 destinations in nearly 90 countries and territories and last year handled about 84 million passengers, the largest number on record.
Geoffrey Thomas, an aviation analyst, told Al Jazeera that about a quarter of a million passengers were expected to be diverted across Europe and the United Kingdom because of Friday’s shutdown.
“There’s going to be mayhem for 24 hours, or probably more like 48 or 72 hours. There are other airports around the United Kingdom that do handle the diverted flights, but their ability to handle this number would be very problematic,” he said.
“So a lot of these flights would divert into Europe. But there again, the problem for airlines is, all of a sudden, you’ve got a flight in Frankfurt where it’s supposed to be in Heathrow, you’ve got crew that are in the wrong place. It’s a chaotic situation,” Thomas added.
Ellen, a traveller from the British county of Surrey, was planning to fly to Venice on Friday on British Airways but had to change her trip due to the shutdown.
“We were supposed to fly to Venice this morning from Heathrow for a day trip for my 30th birthday present. It was a surprise booked by my cousin for the two of us. We have been offered a full refund by the airline so won’t be travelling now this weekend but will try to rearrange for another weekend soon,” she told Al Jazeera.
Lloyd, 34, said he was planning to travel from the Scottish city of Glasgow to the United States via Heathrow to visit his partner but he received an email while he was still en route to Glasgow Airport on Friday morning informing him that his 6:35am flight had been rebooked to a later time and to a different US airport.
By the time he got to the airport, his flight had been cancelled and he was advised not to travel to Heathrow. While disappointing, he said, it was better than being stuck at the London airport.
Footage shared on social media showed an inferno several storeys high, lighting up the night sky and emitting huge plumes of black smoke.
The London Fire Brigade said it had deployed 10 engines and about 70 firefighters to a fire at an electrical substation near the airport in Hayes, west London, and brought the blaze under control.
“This was a very visible and significant incident, and our firefighters worked tirelessly in challenging conditions to bring the fire under control as swiftly as possible,” Assistant Commissioner Pat Goulbourne said. “Thanks to their efforts and coordinated multiagency response, we successfully contained the fire and prevented further spread.”
[Aljazeera]
US President Donald Trump’s administration has said it will revoke the temporary legal status of more than half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Those migrants have been warned to leave the country before their permits and deportation shield are cancelled on 24 April, according to a notice posted by the federal government.
The 530,000 migrants were brought into the US under a Biden-era sponsorship process known as CHNV that was designed to open legal migration pathways. Trump suspended the programme once he took office.
It is unclear how many of these migrants have been able to secure another status in the interim that would allow them to stay in the US legally.
The programme was launched under Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022, first covering Venezuelans before it was expanded to other countries.
It allowed the migrants and their immediate family members to fly into the US if they had American sponsors and remain for two years under a temporary immigration status known as parole.
The Biden administration had argued that CHNV would help curb illegal border crossings at the southern US border and allow for better vetting of those entering the country.
The Department of Homeland Security on Friday rebuked the prior administration and said the program had failed in its goals.
The agency’s statement said Biden officials “granted migrants opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers; forced career civil servants to promote the programs even when fraud was identified; and then blamed Republicans in Congress for the chaos that ensued and the crime that followed”.
However, the 35-page notice in the Federal Register said some of those in the US under CHNV might be allowed to remain on a “case-by-case basis”.
Trump is also considering whether to cancel the temporary legal status of some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled to the US during the conflict with Russia.
CHNV helped a reported 213,000 Haitians enter the US amid deteriorating conditions in the Caribbean country.
More than 120,700 Venezuelans, 110,900 Cubans and over 93,000 Nicaraguans were also allowed into the US under the programme before Trump shut it down.
Last month, DHS announced it would in August end another immigration designation, temporary protected status (TPS), for 500,000 Haitians living in the US.
TPS was granted to nationals of designated countries facing unsafe conditions, such as armed conflict or environmental disasters.
DHS also halted TPS for Venezuelans in the US, although this is facing a legal challenge.
Since taking office in January, Trump’s immigration policies have encountered a number of legal hurdles.
[BBC]
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