Karachi, September 16: Burqa-clad assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades attempted to attack an oil terminal in southern Pakistan but were thwarted by a security guard who was gunned down as the suspects escaped, officials said on Tuesday.
The three attackers, dressed in the all-encompassing garment traditionally worn by Muslim women, tried on Monday to enter the terminal in the port city of Karachi where oil supplies arrive for the country’s largest refinery, police said.
A security guard on duty intercepted them but was shot dead by the attackers.
A police vehicle patrolling nearby heard the gunshots and responded. The attackers managed to escape, but left behind 10 hand grenades, three Kalashnikov rifles and bullets stuffed in a woman’s handbag.
“It was a big attempt at terrorism averted by the police with the help of the brave guard,” city police chief Waseem Ahmed said.
Police later found rocket-propelled grenades, explosives, suicide vests, burqas and other items apparently dumped by the suspects near a sewer in the area, senior investigator Raja Umar Khattab said.
“The bullet cartridges and the burqas found today suggest they threw their weapons when on the run after their foiled attempt on the oil terminal,” Khattab told. Karachi has a population of more than 16 million and a history of political, religious and ethnic violence. It is Pakistan’s largest city and its commercial capital, and Taleban fighters are believed to use it as a place to rest and raise money.
Police suggested the incident could be linked to militancy in northwest Pakistan, where US officials say Taleban and Al Qaeda militants have carved out safe heavens to plot attacks in the region and the West.
“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 Balochistan, police seized rockets, grenades and a suicide jacket from a rubbish dump near a police training centre, 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 centre, but they might have wanted to use them for a big terror activity, which we have foiled,” he said.
Later in the day, police claimed to have arrested four wanted militants from Sultanabad for their role in robbing banks in the city and carrying out terror attacks in Swat and other parts of the tribal areas. The police raided the hideout of the militants on a tip-off nabbed ring-leader Ziaullah Swati and three of his accomplices besides recovered arms and ammunition.
Meanwhile, in another incident three men of a patrolling Rangers party sustained injuries after a home-made device planted in a garbage dump exploded near their parked vehicle in the middle class locality of Nazimabad. Faisal Noor of Nazimabad police said three Rangers who received injuries were identified Ramzan, Ashraf and Sharif.
–Agencies