18-hour gun battle ends siege at Pakistani base
Source: Agencies |
May 24, 2011, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
Troops recaptured a Pakistani naval airforce base yesterday after a 18-hour battle with as few as six Taliban gunmen who had launched their attack to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The assault cast fresh doubt on the military's ability to protect its bases following a raid on the army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi in 2009 and is a further embarrassment following the raid by United States special forces on the al-Qaida leader's hideout north of Islamabad on May 2.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said just six militants were believed involved in the attack on the PNS Mehran base in Karachi late on Sunday, destroying or damaging two aircraft and laying siege to a main building in one of the most heavily guarded bases in the country.
At least 10 military personnel were killed and 20 wounded in the assault, a navy spokesman said.
Malik said three militants were killed in the gunbattle while the body of a fourth was believed to be buried under the rubble of a collapsed wall. Two suspects were believed to have fled the scene.
Malik said 17 foreigners - 11 Chinese and six Americans - were inside the base at the time. All had been evacuated safely.
The Pakistan Taliban, who are allied with al-Qaida, said they had staged the attack to avenge bin Laden's death.
"It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful," Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said.
Malik said the militants, aged between 20 and 25, used two ladders to scale the walls of the base and jumped in by cutting barbed wire. He said guns and grenades had been used in the attack on the base, 24 kilometers from the Masroor Air Base, Pakistan's largest and a possible depot for nuclear weapons.
PNS Mehran is ringed by a concrete wall with about 1.5 meters of barbed wire on top. An aircraft, armed with rockets, hangs on show on a stand outside.
As troops wound down their assault, some Karachi residents said they could not believe security could have been so lax.
"If these people can just enter a military base like this, then how can any Pakistani feel safe?" asked Mazhar Iqbal, 28, an engineering company administrator taking a lunch break in the shade outside the complex.
One P-3C Orion, a maritime patrol aircraft supplied by the United States, was destroyed and another aircraft was damaged.
Pakistan has faced a wave of assaults over the last few years, many of them claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks since bin Laden's death, killing almost 80 people in a suicide bombing on a paramilitary academy and an assault on a US consular vehicle in Peshawar.
Malik said militants had planned to attack military installations as well as important figures at a meeting in North Waziristan - a global hub for militants on the Afghan border - after bin Laden's killing.
Yesterday, at least seven militants, including three Arab nationals, were killed in a missile strike by a US drone aircraft in North Waziristan, local intelligence officials said.
The Pakistani Taliban are led by Hakimullah Mehsud, whose fighters regularly clash with the army in the northwest, parts of which are bases for Afghan militants.
The assault cast fresh doubt on the military's ability to protect its bases following a raid on the army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi in 2009 and is a further embarrassment following the raid by United States special forces on the al-Qaida leader's hideout north of Islamabad on May 2.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said just six militants were believed involved in the attack on the PNS Mehran base in Karachi late on Sunday, destroying or damaging two aircraft and laying siege to a main building in one of the most heavily guarded bases in the country.
At least 10 military personnel were killed and 20 wounded in the assault, a navy spokesman said.
Malik said three militants were killed in the gunbattle while the body of a fourth was believed to be buried under the rubble of a collapsed wall. Two suspects were believed to have fled the scene.
Malik said 17 foreigners - 11 Chinese and six Americans - were inside the base at the time. All had been evacuated safely.
The Pakistan Taliban, who are allied with al-Qaida, said they had staged the attack to avenge bin Laden's death.
"It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful," Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said.
Malik said the militants, aged between 20 and 25, used two ladders to scale the walls of the base and jumped in by cutting barbed wire. He said guns and grenades had been used in the attack on the base, 24 kilometers from the Masroor Air Base, Pakistan's largest and a possible depot for nuclear weapons.
PNS Mehran is ringed by a concrete wall with about 1.5 meters of barbed wire on top. An aircraft, armed with rockets, hangs on show on a stand outside.
As troops wound down their assault, some Karachi residents said they could not believe security could have been so lax.
"If these people can just enter a military base like this, then how can any Pakistani feel safe?" asked Mazhar Iqbal, 28, an engineering company administrator taking a lunch break in the shade outside the complex.
One P-3C Orion, a maritime patrol aircraft supplied by the United States, was destroyed and another aircraft was damaged.
Pakistan has faced a wave of assaults over the last few years, many of them claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks since bin Laden's death, killing almost 80 people in a suicide bombing on a paramilitary academy and an assault on a US consular vehicle in Peshawar.
Malik said militants had planned to attack military installations as well as important figures at a meeting in North Waziristan - a global hub for militants on the Afghan border - after bin Laden's killing.
Yesterday, at least seven militants, including three Arab nationals, were killed in a missile strike by a US drone aircraft in North Waziristan, local intelligence officials said.
The Pakistani Taliban are led by Hakimullah Mehsud, whose fighters regularly clash with the army in the northwest, parts of which are bases for Afghan militants.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
