A group of Taliban militants armed with Rocket-Propelled Grenades (RPGs) and wearing military uniforms stormed the major Pakistan Air Force base ‘Minhas’ early on Thursday morning, sparking a deadly clash with the security forces that left a security official and nine militants dead.
Kamra is around 60kms away from Islamabad and houses the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex that builds fighter jets, including the Mirage, and JF-17s fighter planes with Chinese assistance.
Some western media reports also linked the ‘Minhas’ base to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, but a PAF spokesman strongly denied the reports, saying no Pakistani base was used for the storage of nuclear weapons or in any way linked to the country’s nuclear program. A senior military official, asking not to be named, also rejected the reports that Kamra air complex housed nuclear weapons. “This is an absolutely absurd assumption…most western news reports about Pakistan are mere speculation completely devoid of facts.
“The security forces’ immediate response to the attack is testament to the Pakistan Air Force’s preparedness. The heavily-armed terrorists were eliminated by the first layer of security… Our allies in the West should not doubt our resolve in fighting the menace of terrorism,” he said. As many as nine militants, some of them wearing explosives jackets, attacked the PAF base at around 2am.
“They were armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades,” PAF spokesman Group Captain Tariq Mahmood said. He said at least one of the rockets hit a hangar that was holding some aircraft. The rocket pierced the hangar wall and shrapnel from the explosion damaged one of the aircraft inside. The spokesman did not mention the type of aircraft that was damaged in the attack, but another security official,
seeking anonymity, said it was a SAAB-2000 Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft that was being used for the reconnaissance missions.
Group Captain Tariq said after the rocket barrage, the attackers scaled the wall surrounding the air base. The militants also cut the three-feet-high barbed wire fence before scaling the nine-foot-high wall of the base. The spokesman said the guards present inside the base opened fire on the militants that led to an intense gun battle. “In the initial exchange of fire, soldier Muhammad Asif was martyred,” he said.
Mahmood said the security forces, backed by a team of Special Services Group (SSG) commandos, fought the militants for around two hours after which they were killed and the base was secured. In the brazen militant attack, nine militants were killed, while Base Commander Air Commodore Muhammad Azam, who was leading the team fighting the militants, was injured in the fight. The spokesman said eight militants were killed inside the base territory while the body of the ninth was found outside the base where he blew himself up. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility of the attack on PAF Minhas base, saying it was done to avenge the death of TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan back in 2009.
TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said that the attack on the base was an act of revenge for the death of al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. “The attack was carried out by four suicide bombers,” he said contesting the air force’s statement that nine militants took part in the assault. The security forces, including PAF and army personnel, completed a search operation in the area around noon on Thursday. “The security forces found and destroyed two IEDs,” Group Captain Tariq said. It was not the first such attack on a military installation by terrorists, as around six Taliban militants assaulted the Mehran naval base in Karachi in May 2011, killing around 10 people and destroying two surveillance planes.
In 2009, militants dressed in military fatigues attacked the General Headquarters (GHQ) of Pakistan Army in Rawalpindi and took 30 people hostage. Army commandos were able to take out four militants after a 22-hour battle. The PAF Minhas had also come under attacks in the past. In 2009, a suicide bomber riding a bicycle blew himself up on a road leading to the base, killing seven people.
In 2008, three rockets were fired at an area near the base, but no one was hurt. In 2007, a suicide car bomber injured five children on a PAF bus carrying them to school that was located near the Minhas Base. Defence Minister Naveed Qamar said the death toll of the militants and the minimal damage caused to the base was a clear proof of the level of alertness and preparedness of the security forces. Talking to reporters, he said, “The base’s security was at alert to retaliate in case of a possible attack and they did their job well. The security forces challenged the militants on different parameters, in which one of our soldiers posted at the security tower was martyred,” he said.
He said the militants had suicide vests strapped around them and they were carrying heavy weapons. “Moreover, they had attacked the base with an intention of a ‘do or die battle’. Nonetheless, with minimum damage caused to the base, with only one plane destroyed, the security forces were able to eliminate the terrorists,” he said. To a question on a possible intelligence failure that led to the attack, Qamar said such attacks could only be defended to a certain extent and that the base was located in an urban residential area which always posed a threat of possible infiltration. He said it was not easy to move such big complexes that were built with massive investments, but still the idea of shifting the complex would be looked into. Top PAF commanders went into a huddle soon after they received the information about the terrorist attack. A high-level meeting chaired by Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt discussed the attack in detail and formed a four-member inquiry committee led by Air Marshal Syed Athar Hussain Bukhari to probe the incident.
In their separate statements, President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf strongly condemned the terrorists attack at Kamra Air Force Base and expressed the government’s resolve not to be deterred by such dastardly acts. They said the government was determined to eliminate terrorism and stood firm on this stance.