MILITANTS ATTACK KARACHI POLICE HQ
Militants launched an hourslong assault on the police headquarters in Pakistan’s largest city on Friday, officials said, the latest in a string of attacks in recent months that have shaken many Pakistanis’ sense of security and spurred concerns about militant groups regaining strength from safe havens in neighboring Afghanistan.
The assault in Karachi on Friday began around 7:10 p.m., when three militants stormed the five-story building in a heavily guarded neighborhood home to many senior officers with Pakistan’s security forces, according to Pakistani officials. For around four hours, the sounds of gunfire and explosions could be heard in the heart of the southern port city as the police and security forces battled the militants inside.
Seven people — including the three attackers — were killed in the assault and 14 others were wounded, according to Murtaza Wahab, the spokesperson for Sindh province.
“All three attackers were killed during the operation,” said Muqadas Haider, a senior police officer. “One of them blew himself up on the building’s fourth floor, while the other two were shot dead on the roof.”
The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility for the assault.
The attack in Karachi comes three weeks after a mosque bombing in Peshawar killed at least 101 people and wounded 217 others, mostly police officers and government employees. That blast, for which a faction of the TTP claimed responsibility, was the deadliest to hit Pakistan in years.