KARACHI: Police exchanged fire with gunmen on the streets of western Karachi to thwart a suspected militant plot against a strategic oil terminal complex, officials said Tuesday.
“Three men wearing women’s burkas in a van wanted to enter the city’s oil terminal but were resisted by a facility guard,” city police chief Wasim Ahmed told reporters. “They shot dead the guard and fled when a police patrol team exchanged fire with them.”
Police seized 10 grenades, three Kalashnikovs and women’s purses crammed with bullets and cartridges.
“We suspect they wanted to carry out a big terror activity.We are vigilant and our security measures have so far saved the city from any major terror incident,” Ahmed said.
Pakistan’s Port and Shipping Minister Babar Ghori said Karachi’s oil terminal supplies the whole country. “This facility is a storage area, which supplies oil to the entire country and the incident could be a failed attempt to attack the terminal,” he said.
Police suggested the incident could be linked to militancy in northwest Pakistan. “It could be related to militancy in the country’s northwest but we are investigating,” said Ghulam Nabi Memon, a senior police official.
In Karachi’s Saeedabad area, which sits on the road to the insurgency-ridden province of Baluchistan, police seized rockets, grenades and a suicide jacket from a rubbish dump near a police training center, police said.
“We also recovered two women’s purses. Each contained a hand grenade,” senior police official Abdul Majeed Dasti said. “We can’t say whether they wanted to attack the nearby police training center, but they might have wanted to use them for a big terror activity, which we have foiled,” he said.
