The attack began before dawn Saturday and dragged on as government troops struggled to contain the heavily armed attackers in the sprawling compound. At least twice it has appeared that the attack had ended but fresh gunfire and explosions erupted both times. “Actionable intelligence in regard to the terrorist attacks and the links with the perpetrators in Pakistan was provided to the Pakistani side”.
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Five gunmen and seven Indian soldiers have been killed during four days of siege at the Pathankot air base, in the northern state of Punjab, near the Pakistan border.
As many as seven personnel of Indian security forces have also been killed in the exchange of fire with the terrorists.
The attacked air base sits on the road to Kashmir close to the Pakistani border.
While United Jihad Council, a group based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said that it had orchestrated the attack, the CNN-IBN report cites government sources that deny the group’s involvement. Nawaz also assured his Indian counterpart that Pakistan will investigate any leads or information provided by the government of India. He gave no details on those intercepts in an interview Tuesday with the television news channel TimesNow.
Its foreign ministry said the government was committed to a “sustained dialogue process” and that India had shared leads on the assault.
Radio Pakistan reported that Sharif telephoned Modi “and conveyed sorrow and grief on the losses in (the) Pathankot terror attack”. “The Immediate issue is Pakistan’s response”, he said. Pakistan denies that and says it only provides moral and diplomatic support. But he added that the search at the base was likely to continue for days before it could be declared completely safe. However, the Pathankot terror attack has once again put the focus on terror. The military said Tuesday that a total of six militants had been killed.
“I informed the police as soon as I could”.
The attackers had reportedly made several calls to Pakistan, some of them brief and some long. The alliance has been described by many analysts in the past as an asset of the Pakistani military.
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Briefing the media after national security meeting, Indian Finance Minister said that the operation against the terrorists involved in Pathankot airbase is still going on and nothing can be said about the identity of the terrorists as yet.
