Bloody siege at Pakistan army HQ ends with 19 dead

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-11 15:17

Military helicopters fly over the entrance to Pakistan's army headquarters after an attack by armed men in Rawalpindi, located on the outskirts of Islamabad, October 10, 2009. [Agencies]

Two hours after the raid began, two new explosions were heard. The army said it was "mopping up" the remaining insurgents.

The hostages included soldiers and civilians. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said 20 hostages were kept in a room guarded by a militant wearing a suicide vest who was shot and killed before he managed to detonate his explosives.

Overall, at least 19 people died -- six soldiers, two commandos, eight militant attackers and three captives — and several were wounded. The final hostage-taker was caught as he wounded himself by setting off explosives he was carrying, Abbas said.

Abbas described the captured man as "the leader of all this group."

Saturday's siege followed a car bombing that killed 49 on Friday in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the bombing of a UN aid agency Monday that killed five in Islamabad. The string of attacks destroyed any remaining hope that the militants had been left a spent force by the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in a US missile strike in August.

A week ago, Baitullah Mehsud's successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, told journalists summoned to a briefing in South Waziristan that the Taliban would launch more attacks on military, government and other targets in the country.

The army -- which until 2001 had patronized various militant groups for use as proxies in Afghanistan and India -- had previously been unwilling to go into Wazorostam. Three earlier offensives there have ended in failure, and no one thinks the fight against an estimated 10,000 well-armed fighters there will be any easier this time.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said a Waziristan offensive was now "inevitable."

"We are going to come heavy on you," he warned the militants.

Bokhari, the analyst, said the plans for the latest offensive appeared to have prompted the militants to launch a pre-emptive strike.

"It's an attempt to shake the confidence of the government," he said.

The weekend assault resembled attacks in March in the eastern city of Lahore by teams of militants against the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and a police training center, which the insurgents took over for eight hours before security forces retook it.

A police intelligence report obtained by The Associated Press on Saturday had warned in July that members of the Taliban along with Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group based in the country's Punjab province, were planning to attack army headquarters after disguising themselves as soldiers. The report was given to the AP by an official in the home affairs ministry in Punjab's home department.

Officials said Saturday that they had raided a house in the capital where the attackers were believed to have stayed. They found military uniforms and bomb-making equipment.

Militants regularly attack army bases across the country and bombed a checkpoint outside the army compound in Rawalpindi two years ago -- one of several major bombings to hit the garrison city in recent years. But rarely have the Taliban mounted an armed assault in the city involving multiple fighters.

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