The brazen assault on the PNS Mehran base embarrassed the
military and raised doubts about its ability to protect its bases after a
similar raid on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009.
“We had set up a board of inquiry, and after its report,
court martial proceedings have been initiated against three officers,” a senior
navy official told Reuters, requesting not to be named because he is not
authorized to speak to the media.
The officers being tried include Commodore Raja Tahir, the
commander of the PNS Mehran who was relieved of his command two days after the
attack. At that time, the navy had insisted that it was a “routine and
scheduled” transfer.
However, the naval official said that the initiation of the
trial does not mean that the officers were in some way connected with the
attack.
“They are being tried because they were at a responsible
position, and were responsible for the security and other affairs of the base,”
he said.
Pakistani security officials had earlier detained a former
navy commando and his brother in connection with the raid.
A naval spokesman in Islamabad could not be immediately
reached for comment.
The Mehran base attack came nearly three weeks after US Navy
SEALs killed Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in a secret raid in the
northwestern Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad on May 2.
Pakistani Taleban, allied with Al-Qaeda, have vowed revenge
for Bin Laden’s death.
As few as six militants infiltrated the PNS Mehran naval
base in Karachi, the headquarters of the navy’s air wing, killing 10 security
forces and wounding 20.
The militants, who besieged the base for 16 hours, also
destroyed two P-3C Orion aircraft from the Unites States, crucial for
Pakistan’s maritime surveillance capabilities.
The daring raid was another humiliation for the military,
which had already been unable to explain how the Al-Qaeda chief hid in the
country for years or how the Americans could launch the attack deep inside
their territory.
The Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack
on the Mehran base, but many analysts believe they had an inside help.
Pakistan has faced a wave of assaults over the last few
years, many of them claimed by the Pakistani Taleban and other Al-Qaeda-linked
militant groups.
In October 2009, a small group of militants attacked the
army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, taking 42 people hostage, including
several officers. By the end of the daylong siege, nine gunmen, 11 soldiers and
three hostages were dead.
