Director General of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), Major General Asim Bajwa, confirmed the attack on the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) base in the Badaber area of Peshawar city, reported News global .
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“Terrorists busted the main gate with grenades and split into two groups”. “We will investigate who were their sympathizers and facilitators in Pakistan”, Bajwa said. The base has been there since the early 1960’s but is used mostly as residential housing for Pakistani air force officers working in nearby Peshawar.
It is surrounded by tribal territory, which has been the hub of criminal and militant activity until recently.
It also exposes holes in Pakistan’s pre-emptive intelligence gathering mechanisms, mainly due to lack of co-ordination and information sharing among various security agencies.
The military side have got 10 people wounded, including an armed force major who was shot in the thigh, armed force representative Maj.
“Terrorists engaged, contained around guardroom area”, Bajwa tweeted. The Pakistan Army excessively endured losses.
In a segment that included a speech by a militant commander, the group claimed that its capabilities remained undiminished despite Zarb-e-Azb and vowed to continue attacks on military facilities.
Bajwa said security forces reached the area shortly after and sealed it off but a gun battle is still underway. Local police officer Shahid Khan Bangash said a large explosion was heard after the militants tried to storm the base. He said the attack was quickly repulsed and that the bodies of the slain “terrorist” were lying on the ground in the base compound.
But recently, there has been a lull in violence.
Militants from the Pakistani Taliban have stormed Badaber airbase near Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan.
The raids on North Waziristan were ordered reportedly at the insistence of the Pakistani army, with Gen. Raheel Sharif of the position that the peace talks were meaningless. PAF chief Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman, spoke to Prime Minister Sharif over the telephone and informed him in detail about the ongoing operation. The military said that the dead included 13 terrorists, army captain and three PAF technicians. “Injured in high morale and spirits”, he added. He commended the journalists for keeping the nation informed about the cowardly act of terrorism.
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President Mamnoon Hussain, in condemning the attack, said the government was committed to weeding out terror from the country.
