More than a dozen gunmen attacked Pakistan’s naval aviation base yesterday, blowing up an aircraft and fighting pitched gunbattles inside one of the country’s most heavily guarded military installations.
Officials said up to four people had been killed in the attack on PNS Mehran in the southern city of Karachi and that three hangars housing aircraft had been targeted. Nine explosions were reported from the base, with jet fuel tanks possibly catching fire and exploding.
“They were carrying guns, rocket propelled grenades (LPG) and hand grenades. They hit the aircraft with an RPG,” said Navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali. The attackers numbered up to 15.
“They are still inside the base,” he said.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. But Taliban militants, who have vowed to avenge the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by US special forces, have carried out several attacks since his death on May 2. The government also faces a campaign by the Pakistani Taliban.
The assault started at approximately 10:30pm yesterday and it took about four hours before most of the fires were extinguished and the shooting had largely stopped. Security forces then swept the base in search of the assailants. The Karachi attack evoked memories of an assault on Pakistan’s army headquarters in the town of Rawalpindi in 2009, and revived concerns that even the most well-guarded installations in the country remain vulnerable to militants.
A spokesman said one P-3C Orion, a maritime patrol aircraft, had been destroyed and that intermittent gunfire was continuing.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the militants had attacked from the rear of the base. “We have been able to confine them to one building and an operation is underway either to kill or capture them.”
Media reports said the attackers had made their way in through a sewer line, but that was not confirmed. The military’s goal is to capture as many of the attackers alive as possible, Pakistan television reported.
Pakistani military and paramilitary reinforcements poured in after the attack began, with four vehicles carrying about 10 troops each moving into the base.
Ali said two people — one naval officer and one firefighter — were killed. Two others were wounded. Other officials said four people had been killed.
Ali said no foreign national was on the base.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack:
“Such a cowardly act of terror could not deter the commitment of the government and people of Pakistan to fight terrorism,” he said in statement.
WAVE OF BOMBINGS
Pakistan has faced a wave of bombings and gun assaults over the last few years, some of them claimed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.
Others have been blamed on al Qaeda-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military which have since slipped out of control.
The discovery that bin Laden was living in the garrison town of Abbottabad, not far from the Pakistan Military Academy, has revived suspicions that militants may be receiving help from some people within the security establishment.
Pakistan and the United States say the senior leadership in the country did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad.
Washington sees nuclear-armed Pakistan as a key, if troubled, ally in the region essential to its attempts to root out militant forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.
“We condemn the attack and our sympathies are with the families of those injured or killed,” the White House in Washington said in a statement.
On April 28, suspected militants detonated a roadside bomb in Karachi, killing four members of the navy, the third attack on the navy in a week.
The attack came two days after two bombs hit buses carrying navy personnel, killing four people and wounding 56. Taliban insurgents took responsibility for the twin attacks.
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