Militants were yesterday holding up to 15 people hostage near Islamabad after a failed bid to storm Pakistan’s army headquarters left six soldiers and four attackers dead, officials said.
Up to 10 insurgents armed with automatic weapons and grenades drove up to the compound and shot their way through one checkpost in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, before being stopped by security forces at a second post.
Four militants were killed but at least four managed to flee during the fierce firefight, barricading themselves into a security office near the headquarters as gunship helicopters circled overhead, the military said.
“Eight to 10 terrorists were in-volved in this attack. Four of them have been killed while six of our security personnel were martyred,” the military’s spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told the private Geo TV station.
He said that up to five gunmen escaped and “have taken some security personnel as hostages.”
“Security forces have surrounded the terrorists. We are trying to recover the hostages safely,” he said, adding: “According to our assessment, the number of hostages is 10 to 15.”
The audacious attack in the city adjoining the capital Islamabad unfolded just before midday, when militants dressed in army uniforms hurled grenades and opened fire at an entrance to the heavily-fortified army command centre.
The attack comes amid an increase in insurgent strikes, as analysts say the Islamist Taliban militia are trying to deter an army offensive into their tribal stronghold along the mountainous border with Afghanistan.
“One should not be surprised if Tehreek-e-Taliban network is involved in this attack,” Abbas said. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a militant movement based in the tribal belt and is blamed for most of the attacks which have killed more than 2,200 people in the country in two years.
A security official requesting anonymity told AFP that a brigadier and a lieutenant-colonel were among the dead.
The firefight came a day after a suicide car bomb killed 52 civilians at a busy market in the northwest city of Peshawar.
Government ministers blamed the suicide attack on the Taliban, who have vowed to avenge the death of their leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone missile attack in August.
An AFP journalist at the scene of yesterday’s gunbattle reported that the firefight lasted about an hour-and-a-half, with helicopters carrying the dead militants away after the battle ended.