A team of 8 gunmen attacked a Pakistani air force base with suspected links to the country’s nuclear program, killing a security official in a heavy battle that ended with the militants dead and parts of the base in flames.
A group of eight gunmen have attacked a Pakistani military air base triggering a fierce firefight with security forces that lasted several hours. A few militants wearing military uniforms and suicide belts stormed Pakistani Minhas air base at Kamra, near the capital Islamabad, just before dawn.
All of Pakistan’s air bases were placed on high alert following the attack. 8 militants were killed, one soldier has also died and the base commander was seriously injured.
One of the reporters who was at the Pakistani air base, says that now that the attack has been repelled, the search is on for militants who may have escaped.
Shortly after the attack began, a police officer outside the Pakistani air base, Hafeez Aulakh, said he could hear intense gunfire and see flames leaping up from inside.
Eight Gunmen dressed in military uniforms storm military air base in Pakistan / several people have been killed
There has been a silence in recent attacks, but speculation is now heavy that Pakistan could bow to United States demands for an operation against militants in their premier fortress of North Waziristan, in the tribal belt on the Afghan border.
An official denied there were nuclear weapons on the heavily guarded base, but the audacious assault would likely raise further questions in the West about the dangers of Pakistan’s atomic weapons falling into extremists’ hands.
The Pakistan Air Force Base said eight attackers dressed in military uniforms and armed with rocket propelled-grenades, which damaged one aircraft, and suicide vests targeted the base and adjacent Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at 2 am.
The Pakistani Air Force has announced in an statement that eight people were killed inside the Minhas base boundary wall and one miscreant exploded himself outside the perimeters where he was hiding.
It said there had been a shootout for more than 2 hours and 10 hours after the assault began, spokesman Tariq Mahmood confirmed the Pakistani air base was totally safe.
Witnesses has said the masked attackers came round the back, exploiting the holiest night of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to remain undetected as long as possible. Most of the male residents – from the village at the back – were in mosques for special prayers.
One of the witnesses said : ‘ I heard three or four explosions, there was heavy gunfire also. It appears that the militants arrived using a village track and climbed over the wall. ‘
Suicide attack in Pakistan / Pakistani Air Force Base News
One officer has told that he saw flames after waking up for his late night meal, eaten during the dawn-to-dusk Muslim fasting month. He said there was an announcement by megaphone for soldiers not to move from the barracks and they were forbidden from going to the area where he saw the fire. Special forces and police were scrambled to the scene.
The Pakistani army has carried out numerous offensives against the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s semiautonomous tribal area along the Afghan border and appears to be planning an operation in the group’s last major sanctuary in North Waziristan.
United States Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has told The Associated Press this week that Pakistan has informed American military officials that it plans to launch an operation against the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan in the near future.
Pakistani air force spokesman said one security official had been killed, and the base commander wounded in the shoulder. Previous militant assaults on Pakistani military bases have exacted far higher casualty tolls.
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