The Pathankot airbase siege in India ended on Tuesday afternoon with Indian Defence Minister claiming all 6 terrorists were taken down, Dunya News reported.
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“The attack on Pathankot air base is actually a message from the Pakistani mujahideen that no single sensitive Indian installation is out of their reach”, said spokesman Sayed Saqqat Hussain in the statement, which called on Delhi to grant self-determination to Kashmiri citizens.
“The Government of Pakistan has said publicly and privately that it’s not going to discriminate among terrorist groups as part of its counterterrorism operations”, Kirby said.
The audacious strike killed seven security personnel.
He praised the security forces for the manner in which they had carried out the entire operation and ensured that the vital assets at the air base, including aircraft and helicopters, were not damaged.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley refused to comment on the impact of the attack on Modi’s peace initiative, after the premier’s surprise visit to meet his counterpart in Lahore.
Since Saturday morning, the base has been swarming with aviation based armed forces commandos, troops from India’s first class National Security Guard and nearby police. “(Still) I will not give a negative report till the combing operations are over”, he said. To a query the sources reminded that the assumption of deferment of the foreign secretaries’ talks would be out of place since the two capitals haven’t agreed for the meeting for any specific date.
He also said that all the military bases in the region were being audited from the safety point of view. “We had warned him at that time that Pakistan can never be believed and you would be betrayed and now you see we have been betrayed”, the editorial said. The vehicle was found abandoned later that evening a short distance from the air base, setting off alarm bells among the security agencies.
Although officials are trying to stress that damage at the airbase was minimized, questions are being raised over how the gunmen managed to enter the military facility despite intelligence alerts about a possible terror attack.
Islamabad has promised to act on the leads, and New Delhi has no other option but to wait. Kumar revealed that six terrorists, aged 19-21, made eight phone calls to their handlers based in Pakistan’s Bahawalpur on the night of January 1-2 and took instructions from them.
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The NSG officer added that all assets at the base “including personnel and their families have been secured and are now safe”.
