This Article is From Jun 09, 2014

Pakistani Taliban Claim Responsibility for Karachi Airport Attack

Pakistani Taliban Claim Responsibility for Karachi Airport Attack

Smoke rises after militants launched an early morning assault at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi on June 9

New Delhi: Pakistan's Taliban have claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on Karachi airport, in which 24 people have died.

Here are 10 developments in this story:

  1. A group of heavily armed gunmen stormed Pakistan's biggest airport on Sunday and at least 26 people were killed in a night-long battle at one of the country's most high-profile targets.

  2. Pakistan's security forces said on Monday morning that they have relaunched a military operation at Karachi airport, as gunfire resumed several hours after they announced the end of a militant siege that left 24 dead.

  3. "We have relaunched the operation and called in additional troops," said Sibtain Rizvi, spokesman for the Rangers paramilitary force, adding that one police officer had been injured in the new firing.

  4. "We carried out the attack on Karachi airport to avenge the death of Hakimullah Mehsud," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told news agency AFP, while dismissing the Pakistani government's recent offer of peace talks as a "tool of war".

  5. The assault on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan's sprawling commercial hub of 18 million people, took place as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government tries to engage Taliban militants in talks to end years of fighting.

  6. The attack began just before midnight when 10 gunmen wearing military uniforms shot their way into the airport.

  7. Equipped with suicide vests, grenades and rocket launchers, they had battled security forces in one of the most brazen attacks in years in Pakistan's biggest city. Among the 14 victims were four airport workers.

  8. After the six-hour siege, military spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa had declared in a tweet that the area was "cleared" with "all vital assets intact".

  9. Gun battles went on for five hours and television pictures showed fire raging as ambulances ferried casualties away. By dawn on Monday, the army said the airport had been secured. But new firing was reported at about 10 am.

  10. A senior intelligence official said it appeared the militants had aimed to hijack a plane that passengers were boarding at the main terminal, but that when they were repelled they went on the rampage. "The passenger plane at Jinnah terminal was their target and when they failed to reach there they destroyed two private terminals in frustration," he told news agency AFP.



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