It's Official

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The shit is hitting the fan...

 

October 11, 2009

In Brazen Raid, Militants Storm Headquarters of Pakistani Military

By SALMAN MASOOD

 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a brazen attack on the headquarters of the Pakistani military, gunmen dressed in military fatigues stormed the heart of the nation’s army operations on Saturday, killing six people and taking 10 to 15 hostages, some of them soldiers, an army spokesman said.

 

Four militants were holding the hostages in a building responsible for the security of the headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, the spokesman, Gen. Athar Abbas said.

 

The attack was the third by Taliban militants in Pakistan last week, and is a singular embarrassment for the Pakistani Army, exposing its vulnerability to the powerful Taliban insurgency that is closely associated with Al Qaeda. It came as the military was planning a major offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, and seemed to be a bold gesture by the militants showing that they could attack the army before the army attacked them.

 

American military officials, some of whom were glued to Pakistani television as the events unfolded, said they were astonished that the militants could penetrate the high-security installation to the extent that they did. Even if the military brings the situation under control, said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, the siege represents “a major security lapse.”

 

Just before midnight, more than 12 hours after the attack began, the Pakistani military announced that it was preparing a commando operation to end the standoff.

 

Six military personnel, including a brigadier and a colonel, were killed in the initial stages of the attack when eight to ten militants drove up in a van to what was considered a heavily fortified compound. They shot their way through the first checkpoint and managed to reach the second checkpoint, witnesses said.

 

After a 45-minute gunfight, four of the attackers were killed, General Abbas said, and four to five others fled into the building. Once inside, the militants, armed with explosives and grenades, took military personnel and some civilians hostage.

 

The daring attack on the headquarters, the most sensitive area in Pakistan which serves as the Pakistani equivalent of the Pentagon, came after the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, warned that the army had become the militants’ main target.

 

The army announced two weeks ago that it planned a major offensive in South Waziristan, the Taliban’s mountainous stronghold.

 

Mr. Mehsud said in a news conference last weekend, his first since taking over from Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a missile attack by an American drone in August, that the Taliban would not let the planned offensive go unanswered.

 

The assault on the military headquarters and two bomb attacks last week could be the start of the escalation Mr. Mehsud had warned about, military analysts said.

 

Each of the attacks appeared to have been chosen for a specific reason.

 

In the first attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the headquarters of the United Nations World Food Program in Islamabad on Monday, killing five United Nations workers. That attack seemed designed to intimidate international aid workers and the agency that the Taliban has said should leave Pakistan.

 

In Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, a car bomb killed 48 people in the busiest bazaar at noon Friday when it was most crowded. It was one of the most lethal attacks in a city that has become a consistent target of the Taliban.

 

Security analysts said the militants had cells planted through out Punjab, the most populous province, and had clearly refined assault techniques from its close links with Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

 

According to an account from a senior military official who was at the scene when the attack began about 11:30 a.m. in Rawalpindi, there was initial confusion because the attackers were dressed in army fatigues, and security officers could not tell the difference between soldiers and militants, he said.

 

They militants were a mixed group, said the military official, who declined to be identified. Some came from the tribal areas, some from Punjab and some from Kashmir, the disputed territory on the Indian border.

 

The men made calls on their cellphones demanding release of prisoners from government custody, the official said.

 

Once the militants had the hostages in their control, soldiers encircled the building, the senior official said.

 

Another witness, Mansoor Ahmed, told the Geo television network that the men in the van were stopped at a gate. “Soon heavy firing started,” he said. “I saw one terrorist falling down. They have also used hand grenades.”

 

“The target was symbolic,” said Cyril Almeida, an editor at the Dawn newspaper. “But it fit a pattern of militants disguising themselves and trying to penetrate security institutions.”

 

As the siege developed at the headquarters, the chief of the Pakistani military, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was shown on Pakistani television meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari on the contentious issue of a $7.5 billion five year American aid package that the army says interferes with Pakistan’s national security.

 

Pakistani television reported that Mr. Zardari, who has hailed the aid as a major triumph but has come under direct attack from the army for accepting its conditions, had agreed to take up the army’s objections with the Obama administration.

 

The taking of hostages inside the grounds of the headquarters was particularly insulting because the army had been riding high in public opinion after its offensive against Taliban forces in the Swat Valley in the summer pushed militants out of the area.

 

Stepped up security precautions in the capital, Islamabad, and in Peshawar, appeared to have quelled militant attacks in the last few months.

 

And a lull in bombings after Baitullah Mehsud’s death was interpreted by security analysts as a sign that the Taliban were in disarray, hurt badly by drone attacks and the presumed shattering of their leadership structure.

 

But the new leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, appeared intent to launch dramatic strikes before the army struck in South Waziristan, a retired senior army officer, Brig. Mehmood Shah said.

 

A commentator on national security and former senior police officer, Arbab Hidayatullah, said Saturday that the attack had occurred because the military had so far failed to “deliver the mother of all battles" in South Waziristan, giving the “terrorists a free hand to deliver themselves.”

 

Salman Masood and Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.