11 killed in Islamabad court attack
Print Edition
A GROUP of armed men, including two suicide attackers, stormed a court complex in the Pakistani capital yesterday, in a rare terror attack in the heart of Islamabad that killed 11 people and wounded dozens.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assault, which came just days after the Pakistani Taliban announced a one-month ceasefire, raising questions about the group’s ability to control its various factions. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been trying to negotiate a peace settlement with militants in the northwest who have waged a bloody war against the government for years.
Witnesses spoke of attackers wielding automatic weapons in the narrow alleyways of the court complex, hurling grenades and opening fire on lawyers, judges and court personnel.
One lawyer described it as a scene from hell, with blasts and firing all around. “My colleague was shot, and there was no one to help him. When I reached him, he was bleeding and crying for help,” said Momin Ali.
Initial reports suggested two men wearing explosive vests rushed into the court complex, threw hand grenades and started shooting, then blew themselves up, said Islamabad Police Chief Sikander Hayat. He put the death toll at 11.
“It was certainly an act of terrorism,” Hayat said. One of the attackers blew himself up outside the office of the lawyers’ union president and the other outside the door of a judge’s office, he added.
The explosions sent lawyers and judges running in fear for their lives as police stormed in. Police subsequently searched the entire complex and found no more attackers, said Hayat.
But other officials and a lawyer on the scene said there were more than two attackers. Police official Jamil Hashmi said there were about six to eight attackers who spread into different areas of the court complex.
“One of the attackers entered a courtroom and shot and killed a judge,” Hashmi said.
Lawyer Sardar Gul Nawaz, said the attackers had short beards and wore shalwar kameez, a traditional Pakistani outfit of baggy pants and a tunic.
The dead included two judges and five lawyers, said a doctor at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad where casualties were taken.
Police cordoned off the complex, which was taken over by police commandos.
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