Taliban vows more attacks in Pakistan
June 9, 2014, 7:55 pm

Smoke billows from a hangar at Karachi Jinnah International Airport after security forces killed all Taliban attackers [AP]

The well-planned and coordinated attack, which took security officials by surprise, left dozens dead.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior had yet to release a final death toll, but late on Monday hospital sourced said at least 27, including 10 attackers, had died in the attack after security forces discovered two charred bodies in one of the hangars that had been on fire.

Five people were still unaccounted for.

Security forces said they killed seven armed men in a five-hour gun battle; three other attackers died when they detonated their suicide bomb belts. Some of the armed men were dressed in security fatigues.

Airport officials said they managed to evacuate passengers from two commercial aircraft which were parked on the runways at the time of the attack.

No passengers were injured in the attack.

Early on Monday a Taliban statement said the group had carried out the attack in retaliation for drone strikes on villages in the northwest region bordering Afghanistan.

The Associated Press quoted Shahidullah Shahid, a Taliban spokesman, as saying: “The main goal of this attack was to damage the government, including by hijacking planes and destroying state installations.”

“The message to the Pakistani government is that we are still alive to react to the killings of innocent people in bomb attacks on their villages,” said Shahid, who promised that this was only the beginning of a new campaign against Islamabad.

The attack indicates that peace talks with some of the Taliban factions may now be defunct.

The Pakistani government had hoped that the death in November of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud would have made the fractious elements that made up the group would have become more prone to peace talks.

Now, however, with reports of foreign fighters – on Sunday Pakistani media reported that a number of Uzbeks had taken part in the Karach airport attack – engaging openly with Pakistani forces, the more aggressive groups may have seized control of the Taliban.

Source: Agencies