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Karachi Commander Escapes Attack, 11 Killed
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Police
officers gather at a site soon after the blast in Karachi
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By
Asif Farooqi, IOL correspondent
ISLAMABAD,
June 10 (IslamOnline.net) – A Pakistani army commander in the
volatile southern city of Karachi narrowly escaped assassination on
Thursday, June 10, when his convoy was attacked with gunfire and a
bomb, killing at least 11, in what officials saw as a response to a
bloody assault on militants near the Afghan border.
The
deadly attack on the motorcade of the Corps Commander Lt Gen Ahson
Saleem Hayat, the highest ranking military officer in the city, took
place when he was on his way to his office in the posh district of
Karachi.
Military
sources said Hayat was unhurt but Hayat's driver was among those
killed when several assailants opened fire on the military convoy of
seven to ten vehicles as it approached a road crossing in Clifton
District.
One
bomb was also thrown over the convoy which hit one of the military
vehicle killing at least three army personnel riding it.
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Sultan
said most of those killed were part of the general's escort detail
and were shot, along with some bystanders.
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Major
Gen Shaukat Sultan told reporters that seven army personnel and three
policemen were killed in the attack. He said most of those killed were
part of the general's escort detail and were shot, along with some
bystanders.
Emergency
workers said the dead were six soldiers, three policemen and a
civilian. Eight people were wounded.
This
is the first assassination attempt of its kind in the troubled history
of the city. Sultan said it was a terrorist attack but refused to link
any group to it.
The
attack came just six months after the army chief and president,
General Pervez Musharraf, narrowly escaped two similar assassinations
attempts blamed on senior Al-Qaeda leaders who allegedly planned these
attacks through their diehard man in Pakistan known to agencies as
Amjad Farooqi who once headed one of the banned militia outfits.
Police
said at least three or four gunmen, who appeared highly trained,
escaped in a car abandoned about 10 km (six miles) from the attack.
They said they found a Kalashnikov rife, empty shells and a mask
inside the car, Reuters said.
"It
was a well-planned ambush," a senior military officer said,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
'Clashes'
Thursday's
attack coincided with renewed fighting this week between the military
and Al Qaeda-linked militants near Wana, capital of a remote tribal
region bordering Afghanistan.
The
military said 20 militants were killed in the clashes near the
mountain town of Wana that started on Wednesday, many of them
foreigners, including Chechens and Uzbeks, Reuters said.
A
security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said at least
15 security personnel had been killed, but the military declined to
confirm this.
There
was no apparent link between the two incidents, but several absconding
members of militia organizations have in the past vowed to take
“revenge” from the government functionaries for what they describe
as killing of their fellow militants.
However,
military spokesman refused to confirm or deny the involvement of Nek
Muhammad, a tribal leader who had earlier threaten retaliation, in the
attack.
Karachi
has been rocked by a wave of violence in the past month in which more
than 70 people have been killed. It has witnessed a crackdown against
tribal militancy in which several hundred members of these groups have
been killed or arrested since they were banned in 2001.
Thursday's
attack came just a day after a member of the ruling pro-military
coalition was elected chief minister of Sindh province, of which
Karachi is the capital. His predecessor had resigned in the wake of
bloodshed last month.
'What
happened'
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A
Pakistani paramilitary soldier stands guard with an armored
personnel carrier in Wana
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Government
officials said 20 suspected militants were killed while one injured
militant was captured in the fighting. They said that the bodies of
six suspected militants, believed to be foreigners, were retrieved
till Wednesday evening.
"The
militants have buried seven of their dead comrades in Shakai, while
the rest of the bodies are lying in the dry river- bed that could not
be retrieved because of fighting," one official source said.
At
least three civilians, two men and a woman, were killed in crossfire
when militants tried to force them out of a place to take up position
there against the security forces. They belonged to the Khanokhel
Mehsud tribe and were living in one of the three houses built
underneath the Torwam bridge on the Tiarza-Luddah Road.
Locals
in Tiarza, where one of the two attacks took place, said the casualty
figure on both sides could be higher.
According
to the official account, suspected militants launched simultaneous
attacks on two military check posts about 10 kilometers apart at
around 4.30am. But tribesmen said the fighting began after the
militants had occupied one of the posts and the besieged soldiers
called for reinforcements.
Brig
Mehmood Shah, head of the security in Fata, told reporters the
militants launched the attack with mortars, rockets and machine-guns
on the military post on the Tiarza- Luddah Road near the
recently-built Torwam bridge, about 20km to the west of Wana.
The
other attack was launched almost simultaneously on a military post
about 10km from the Torwam post, on the Wana-Inzar Road, about 25km to
the west of Wana. Both the check posts served as entry points in the
foothills of the Shakai valley, an area widely considered to be used
as a hideout by hundreds of foreign militants.
Thousands
of armed tribal volunteers, under pressure from the government, have
been searching for foreign militants in Shakai for the last two days,
but without any luck.
The
lashkar abandoned its search on Wednesday following the twin-attack
and returned to Wana. Tribesmen said the search was abandoned after
local tribes refused to cooperate with the lashkar.
Accusations
A
grand jirga of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe has now been summoned at Azam
Warsak on Thursday to discuss the situation and chalk out the future
course of action.
The
officials and top tribal militant Nek Muhammad were quick to accuse
each other of violating the April 24 'rapprochement' reached at Shakai
that won amnesty for five top tribal militants including Nek, in
return for a pledge to remain peaceful and not to use Pakistani soil
against any other country.
The
27-year-old Nek and his four fellow clansmen have been accused by the
authorities of harboring and helping foreign militants. A spokesman
for the ISPR said in a statement that the government was following a
political process to resolve the issue of foreign militants amicably
and without using force.
"However,
miscreants in an utter violation of the agreement and breach of trust,
Muslim values, tribal customs and local traditions, resorted to
unprovoked firing on the posts of the security forces.
"This
should be an eye-opener for those who, oblivious of the ground
realities, continue to maintain that there are no miscreants in the
area," the statement concluded.
But
Nek Muhammad in an interview with a foreign news organization hurled
the same charge at the government. "It is the government which is
committing excesses against our tribesmen and these attacks are the
result of those excesses," he contended.
"If
the government does not stop the operation there will be attacks in
Peshawar, Islamabad and Karachi," Nek Muhammad warned.
Without
accepting responsibility for the attacks, the tribal militant, who had
once fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan, rebuffed the government's
claim regarding casualties among militants. "Only one of the
mujahideen embraced martyrdom," he said.
Senior
officials said that the foreign militants were still hiding in Shakai
and the army was contemplating a major operation. "There will be
a strong reaction," commented one senior official.
"The
writ of the government will have to be established now. We have been
befooling ourselves by trying to encourage lashkars and jirgas. The
tribal institutions have weakened and eroded over the period,"
the official commented.
Locals
in Shakai said that hundreds of families, with women and children,
were moving to safe location for fear of a military operation in the
area.
Airports
On Alert
As
news broke of the attack in Pakistan's main port city of 14 million
people, officials said Pakistan had placed its international airports
at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad on high security alert after
intelligence reports of a hijacking threat.
"There
is a high alert at the three international airports after hijacking
threats," said Major Riaz Ahmad, a spokesman for the Airport
Security Force. "We received some intelligence reports on
hijacking last night and have beefed up security."
A
security agency source said the alert was to ward off any retaliation
to a military crackdown on foreign militants in the remote tribal
region this week in which dozens have been killed.
Airports
in Pakistan have been put on high security alert several times in the
past year.
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