Pakistan strikes hideouts
New attack by gunmen on Karachi airport checkpost as military hits tribal district
Asecurity checkpost outside Pakistan’s Karachi airport was last night under attack, a day after a siege by the Pakistan Taliban left 37 dead. “Gunmen are exchanging fire with Airport Security Force (ASF) personnel at a checkpost guarding the airport,” an ASF spokesman said. TV footage showed paramilitary vehicles and ambulances racing to the scene of the attack.
“We have suspended all flight operations at Karachi airport and we are evacuating passengers,” said Mashud Tajwar, a spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines. The checkpost is located at the entrance of an ASF camp some 500m away from the main airport premises.
Earlier Pakistan carried out air strikes in the restive Tirah Valley area of the Khyber tribal district, killing at least 15 people, the military said. A statement added that “nine terrorist hideouts were destroyed” in the raids.
The assault on Karachi’s airport has left Pakistan’s nascent peace process with the Taliban in tatters and officials in the northwest reported that about 25,000 people had fled a restive tribal district in the past 48 hours, fearing a long-awaited ground offensive. Officials said seven charred bodies were recovered from a burned building at the airport. The head of the Karachi Municipal Corporation, Rauf Akhtar Farooqi, said the bodies were recovered from a cold storage unit but it is not clear how they ended up in it.
The assault on Jinnah International Airport is the latest offensive to be launched by the Pakistan Taliban in an insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives since 2007. Some of the 10 Taliban gunmen were dressed in army uniforms. Authorities put their mangled bodies, assault rifles, grenades and rocket launchers on show for the press. At least three detonated their suicide vests and a severed head formed part of the grisly display.
Pakistan stepped up security around nuclear facilities, military bases and government offices.
Mohyuddin Wani, the press secretary for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said it was too early to draw conclusions about the prospects for peace talks.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist whose militant contacts helped to set up preliminary talks, said the airport attack would have taken a fortnight to plan. “This was their message to the Pakistan Government to say that they are not finished, that they are still around. Every airport is a potential target.” Nato has launched an investigation into the deaths of five soldiers in southern Afghanistan as local officials blamed a “friendly fire” error by a coalition air strike. The deaths in Zabul were the worst single incident for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force since five British soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash on April 26. The most recent major “friendly fire” incident was in April when five Afghan soldiers were killed in Logar. “I can confirm that five foreign troops were killed as a result of their own bombardment in Arghandab district,” Ghulam Sakhi Roghlewani, police chief of Zabul province, said last night. Mohsin Khan, spokesman for the Afghan Army’s 205 division also said it was a friendly fire incident. A 43-year-old man was seriously injured when he was attacked by a shark while surfing off central Japan. Tsuyoshi Takahashi was rushed to hospital after being attacked off the Atsumi Peninsula in Aichi. Police have captured a wanted man who climbed onto rooftops in a Los Angeles neighbourhood while armed with a rifle after a highway chase. Prosecutors identified the man as 41-year-old Nolan Perez. Perez was charged with seven felony counts including stalking and criminal threats against his ex-girlfriend.