RAWALPINDI: Gunmen wearing army uniforms and riding a Suzuki van bearing military number plates struck at the heart of the Pakistani military on Saturday, killing six soldiers and taking up to 15 hostages.
The heavily armed terrorists managed to go past the checkpoint at Gate No. 1 at the army’s General Headquarters and opened fire on being challenged at a second checkpoint. In the ensuing gunbattle, 10 people were killed. Among the dead were a brigadier and a lieutenant colonel. Four gunmen were killed and five soldiers were injured.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said four or five militants were holed up in one of the buildings inside the complex with up to 15 hostages. “Efforts are under way for their safe recovery.”
“We’re facing an extraordinary situation. It’s a very difficult hostage situation,” Abbas told Geo television. “Now a plan is being drawn up through which the lives of as many hostages as possible can be saved,” he said.
No senior military or intelligence officers were among those being held, he said.
Late Saturday, sporadic gunfire was heard coming from the complex. Abbas said the raiders belonged to a branch of Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan that is controlled by Lashkar-e-Jhangwi, a terrorist outfit. A private TV channel received a call from a man who identified himself as Amjad Farooqui and claimed that he was the head of TTP, Punjab and his organization was responsible for the attack.
The caller said the attack was intended to limit “the influence of foreign powers and the growing activities of infamous Blackwater” in Pakistan. Authorities hold Amjad Farooqui’s organization responsible for attacks on former President Gen. Pervez Musharraf twice.
The brazen attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi came as the military prepares a major offensive against the militants in their northwestern stronghold of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
The United States has been pushing Pakistan to take strong action against insurgents using its soil as a base for attacks in Afghanistan. The army has previously been unwilling to go into Waziristan with significant force, but has likely been emboldened by its successes against the militants in the Swat Valley earlier this year and the killing of Baitullah Mehsud.
“I want to give a message to the Taleban that what we did with you in Swat, we will do the same to you there (in Waziristan), too,” said Interior Minister Rehman Malik. “We are going to come heavy on you.”
Militants regularly attack army bases across the country and bombed a checkpoint outside the army compound in Rawalpindi two years ago — one of several major bombings to hit the town in recent years. But rarely have the Taleban mounted an armed assault here involving multiple fighters.
In its brazenness and sophistication, Saturday’s assault resembled attacks in March by teams of militants against the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in the eastern city of Lahore and a police training center, which the insurgents took over for 12 hours before security forces retook it.
Saturday’s gunbattle followed a car bombing that killed 49 on Friday in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the bombing of a UN aid agency on Monday that killed five in Islamabad. The man who attacked the UN was also wearing a security forces’ uniform and was granted entry to the compound after asking to use the bathroom. Militants have been carrying out nearly weekly attacks in Pakistan, but the sheer scale of Friday’s bombing in Peshawar, which killed nine children, pushed the government to declare it would take the fight to the lawless tribal belt along the border where Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden may be hiding.
Any operation in Waziristan will be very difficult. Analysts say the militants may have 12,000 well-armed fighters there, while winter will arrive in one month’s time and could bog down troops.
— With input from agencies
