A team of heavily armed militants launched a brazen attack on Pakistan’s largest civilian airport on Sunday, killing at least 13 people and setting the airport ablaze during a night-long assault.
Police said up to 10 attackers wearing suicide vests managed to enter Jinnah international airport in Karachi carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, apparently accessing sensitive areas of the airport through a service gate near to a terminal used by VIPs including the prime minister and foreign dignitaries.
The attack on the airport of Pakistan’s economic capital was one of the most audacious the country has seen for years and is likely to sharpen criticism of the government’s policy of attempting to negotiate a peace deal with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the country’s main militant group.
The attack began shortly before midnight and the noise of heavy gunfire and at least two loud explosions were heard in the course of the night. About five of the terrorists appeared to have gained access by shooting their way through a side gate near the old terminal. At least five others may have blasted their way through a wall near the cargo area, officials said.
At least some of the gunmen wore the uniforms of the airport security force that protects the nation’s airports, said an official who briefed journalists near the airport.
He said all were strapped with explosives. One tried to capture a vehicle used by the civil aviation authority and when a guard shot at him, the explosives strapped to his body went off. The official said another attacker also blew up after being shot at by security forces.
Thick smoke billowed from a fire that appeared from TV pictures to be perilously close to commercial airliners, although army officials said no planes had been destroyed.
It was unclear if the fire was deliberately started by the attackers or resulted from fighting with the army troops who rushed to the scene.
Officials inside the airport said at least three planes had been damaged during the fighting, however. Abid Qaimkhani, a spokesman for the aviation authority, said some planes had been hit by gunfire, but said that none had caught fire.
Chief minister of Sindh province, Qaim Ali Shah, said the attackers intended to destroy some of the aircraft and buildings but were stopped before they could complete their attack. “They were well trained. Their plan was very well thought out,” he told reporters.
One senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity, said some of the militants tried to hijack a plane, but were unsuccessful.
Hospital officials said they had seen nine bodies: seven airport security personnel, a Pakistan International Airlines employee, and an official with Pakistan’s civil aviation authority.
A few hours into the fighting, Pakistani army spokesman General Asif Bajwa said the attackers had been “contained in one area”, thought to be near a maintenance area. At 4.30am local time, the army reported that all 10 attackers had been killed. They also said that all passengers who had been on aircraft were safely moved into the main terminal building.
But there was an anxious wait for many. Farooq Sattar, a senior member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the party that dominates Karachi, was on a London-bound plane as it taxied into position at the end of the runway. “It was a very close call because we would have passed right past terminal one [where the fighting was taking place],” he said.