Shootout near Sharif’s house, Taliban attacks Kabul airport
Two Pakistani policemen and a militant were killed in a shootout in the city of Lahore on Thursday a short distance from the prime minister Nawaz Sharif ’s family home, police said. In a separate incident underlining the threat Pakistan faces from Islamist militants, six people were killed by a roadside bomb on the outskirts of a northwestern town. The Lahore gun battle lasted several hours and took place just over two km from Sharif’s private family residence, police said. The clash in the eastern city in the early hours of the morning came as the army carries out an offensive to clear Pakistani Taliban militants from strongholds in North Waziristan, a remote northwestern region on the Afghan border. In neighbouring Afghanistan, Taliban fighters fired volleys of rocket-propelled grenades at the Kabul international airport early Thursday after killing a guard and seizing control of a nearby building. The airport was closed for several hours, and flights were diverted as Afghan security forces battled the militants. It was the third and most serious attack on Kabul’s airport.