Air Chief Tahir Rafique Butt tours PAF’s Minhas Base a day after a deadly militant attack. PHOTO: APP
A day after a brazen assault at Pakistan Air Force’s largest base was repulsed by security forces, Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed that four of the nine militants killed in the attack have been identified.
Meanwhile, a second soldier died of injuries sustained in the attack, raising the overall death toll to 11.
‘Not a security lapse’
The attack at PAF Base Minhas was not a security lapse, Malik told a news conference on Friday.
The interior ministry issued warnings regarding a possible attack at air force installations in advance, and as a result of this intelligence-sharing, PAF personnel were able to foil this attempt, Malik said.
He said four of the nine attackers killed during the operation have been identified, and added that the attack could be traced back to North and South Waziristan agencies.
In an attempt to dispel international concerns, Malik insisted that nuclear assets of the country “are fully secured.”
“If we can develop nuclear assets, we know how to protect them,” the minister said, adding that a similar propaganda was unleashed when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto launched the nuclear programme back in the 70s.
Another soldier dies
PAF spokesman Tariq Mahmood told AFP that a second soldier died of his injuries from the assault in a hospital on Friday morning.
According to a PAF press release, Sepoy Muhammad Iqbal had accidentally fallen off a truck when the security personnel were rushing to counter the militants.
Air chief visits Kamra
Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt visited the Minhas airbase on Friday and was briefed about the sequence of operations against the militants.
Base Commander Air Commodore Muhammad Azam, who was injured during this operation, also accompanied him during the visit.
Addressing a joint gathering of the base personnel and army troops deployed at the base, the air chief said: “We must understand and realise that we are in a state of war, that too against a hidden enemy. These cowardly attacks cannot weaken our resolve to defend our motherland.”
The air chief attended the funeral parade of Sepoy Muhammad Iqbal. He also visited the PAF Hospital Kamra to enquire about the health of three security officials who received injuries from the detonation of suicide jacket during the operation. All three were discharged Friday evening, a press release said.
Background
Nine heavily-armed militants dressed in military fatigues and armed with rocket-propelled grenades and suicide vests stormed the PAF base on Thursday, sparking heavy clashes that killed one security official and nine attackers at the base, which is a vital installation located in Kamra, outside Attock.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan promptly claimed responsibility for what was the worst attack on a military base for more than a year.
PAF Minhas has been attacked twice before, but on previous occasions the militants had not managed to penetrate the compound.
(With additional input from AFP)
(Read: Kamra attack — living in denial)
Published in The Express Tribune, August 18th, 2012.
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Infiltrators or freedom fighters.
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I had been complainant of the preparedness of our our armed forces on the night of Kamra Attack but 1 vs 9 show that our forces have done well. Keep it up.
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Even with advanced notification 9 terrorist were able to enter your airbase – kill at least two soldiers and destroy aircraft. Not many (if any) people outside of Pakistan would chalk that up to a victory as Malik has described. You need to keep Malik away from reporters and you need to hold your military responsible for it’s failures.
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Clearly Malik has no clue who did it. It is his typical pattern to blame it all on un-traceable elements. He only claims to know , but till date has never shared what he knows.
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We already knew who they were. It was a delegation from Waziristan to plan Imran’s tour of that area.
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and this is not a security lapse. Fire the FIA, ISI incharge of area
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Please,.. not another press conference by Rehman Malik. If I want to watch a comedy show, I’ll watch the Simpsons, but not Rehman Malik, not now.
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You cannot rectify your mistakes when you always say that you are Immaculate, invincible and have no problems at all. This is the endemic in our Armed Forces and they will never learn today and in future as well. The attackers exploited weak spots in base defenses where according to analysts there were no lights at all and same thing happened in Minhas attack. So what they learned from previous attacks?. The answer is None. There are bad apples within the army who are informing Talibans before every assault in Waziristan and everytime some operation is going to be launched against the high value target the target is gone within minutes. How it is possible.??. Who is sharing intelligence with Terrorists? There is someone inside our Armed Forces and on Good Positions with Good network to disseminate the message to the terrorists in a timely manner . There are Terrorists within the Men in Uniform who are with Rogue elements and they will continue to help them in future.Recommend
@Raj:
Keep your ‘freedom fighters’ phrase to yourself. They wont be as sympathetic to you Indians as you are being to them.
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@Raj:
Excuse us- Mind ur own business… We r not rushing like u to the conclusion
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Interior Minister Rehman Malik: “If we can develop nuclear assets, we know how to protect them”.
So why the conspiracy that USA wants to take your nukes?
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Hats off to the Pakistani military who foiled the attempt of anti state cowards working for the enemies of Pakistan.
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My heros. PAF makes us proud.
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But my question to you Mr. Malik is, will you ever tell the nation who are these infiltrators? Your statements always tell us that you know the culprits, but you never share with us the information. Are you also part of it, or you are scared of letting us know?
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@Raj
Freedom fighters are in Indian occupied Kashmir!
Regards
Fu raj
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@Cautious
The other 9 people were not sitting stooges that security personal at base could target practice with them. When two sides collide, there is damage to both sides.
For terrorists every thing was a target. They can fire on all sides without worrying where the bullets and rockets are going whereas for security personal, they had to pinpoint the terrorists and attack to avoid any damage to their own base and personal.
The outcome was good enough that only minor damage was done. Alas that your sponsored terrorists have failed.
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They were freedom fighters from Balochistan !!!
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Taliban are being supported by US, Israel & India to destroy Pakistan. It is time that we review our cooperation with US. All three are funding and equipping them. Raymond Davis was also one such case.
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“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
And this picture speaks volumes!
An apt metaphor for Pakistan; bruised, beaten and in need of some urgent care!
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The fanatic terrorists have not waged a war on Pakistani people. They are just fighting the US/NATO forces by killing, attacking and hurting Pakistan. Despite all these attacks we keep denying that we are at war that we did not choose and imposed on us by terrorists. Time for the drones to come back in action once again before these savages hurt Pakistan even more.
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Interior Minister says “If we can develop nuclear assets, we know how to protect them.”
So why the conspiracy that USA will take them?
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Raj
An Indian Hindu calls them freedom fighters. Now, we know who is training and sending these terrorists.A country which benefits most from destruction of Pakistan’s eyes and ears, our AWACS. Erieye is the first high-performance, long-range Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) system based on active phased-array pulse-Doppler radar, which keeps Pakistanis alert not only to the intrusion of Indian aircrafts, troops, and ships, but also of its conjoined twin Israel.
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someone comes from heaven and free us from ( fright of terriorists), for we are afraid to fight them………………………..
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@Raj:
Haha, good one, Raj.
Apparently the Freedom Fighter tag is only when they attack non-Muslims. Correction. When they attack non-Pakistani-Muslims.
They are Terrorists if they attack Pakistani Muslims or any other Muslims who are in Xinjiang, China.
The theory is attack Indians – Freedom Fighters(FFs). Afghans – FFs. NATO – Super FFs.
Just change the target to Pakistan, they will stop being FFs. For example, Baituallh Mehsud when he was alive and when Mumbai happened he said he will fight India if it attacks. For that the ISI chief had said he is a patriot Pakistani. When he started attacking Pakistan establishment overnight he become a “Indian agent”.
The logic is really twisting and doesn’t really makes sense to the non-Pakistani mind. You have to excuse them.
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@ARK:
You say that “Taliban are being supported by US, Israel & India”!
And of course you can prove that!
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@Fu Raj:
One country’s terrorists are other country’s “freedom fighters”. Those who were infiltrated in Kashmir can no longer enter Kashmir hence the itch to free “Pakistan” is being acted upon by them in Pakistan. Stop deluding yourself; TTP is made of Pakistanis, whether from FATA or PATA or Baloch or other-soch.
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If the attackers have been identified so fast but identities are not being released does it mean that some of them are current or former security personnel ?
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We are Proud of u , PakARmy
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@Cautious:
No doubt there was unprecedented lapse never seen or heard of before! Only in Pakistan.
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How can base commander gets injured. I have seen residence banglows of them inside out, this is a topi drama from him.
Remember operation was done by SSG and there are several juniors before base commander asks for a fight.
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@Raj:
hahahahahah hahahahahah, hahahahahah, they are freedom fighters
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@Awans:
Yes, MR, AWANS you said it
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@Mirza:
Mr.Mirza, sad part is that since 65 years
the country is seeing all these unwanted firing exercises, The immaturity of paks leaders is the reason for all this menace and sufferings,
The generations are suffering , You are quite a fantastic brainy people with a lot of talents .
where is the curse, when nawaz sherif comes, parvesh musharaf goes , when musharaf comes navas sherif goes,when zardari comes all will go, what are these guys doing in London,
Is london such a fine place,
Are They deliberately doing this for military training
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@Cautious:
See little information is dangerous that’s just can be depicted with your uninformed comment. Terrorists were not able to sneaked in. They were intercepted when they were trying to climb the wall. Three of them were shot at the wall, there bodies were still lying there. 6 succeeded to jumped in but were also nipped down. No plane was destroyed, one rpg (rocket launcher) did landed at top of the hanger where the plane was placed in. That rocket did damage the walls of the hanger and in process 2 windows of the craft were damaged which is nothing serious. The security at the base did a great job intercepting them since they were on alert after the intelligence unlike in the case of mehran base attack.
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I hope they dont turn towards India after 2014 when Americans are gone
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“If we can develop nuclear assets, we know how to protect them,”
…Alright, now, tell me what steps in the process of creating one is the same as protecting them? You didn’t even actually come to possess the ability through work and progress as a culture since you just got your hands on the blueprints. So, even if the ability to secure them came along with the ability to create them as a package, you never actually developed that far in the first place for that ability to manifest.
I’ll answer my own question: Nothing. Safe or unsafe, those two things have nothing to do with each other as far as ability is concerned. Using that logic, because you can develop nuclear assets that Pakistan should be the safest country in the world. Fact is, you and everyone else believes things are secure until the day they’re found not to be… Or are you to imply you knowingly don’t secure your bases and jails? One would figure you’d put just as much effort into securing those as you do anything important such as your nukes. Yet, those things are constantly found lacking in security.
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and what about the insider snakes who provided terrorists the intelligence about the facility?
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@Raj: Infiltrators and inhuman – nothing more, nothing less!
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Has Zaid Hamid confirmed whether the killed terrorists are circumcised. Remember he has been claiming having seen uncircumcised terrorists in Pakistan.
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@Aik Pakistani:
You cant even rush to conclusion as it is not a bunch of Hindu fanatics who attacked your AIRBASE NEAR ISLAMABAD!!What kind of a security set up is this?Even Kashmiri terrorists could not attack air bases in J&K,forget about national capital!!
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I believe this is wrath of Allah for killing shias in pakistan.
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There was an initial report that one terrorist was caught alive. Subsequently he was also killed, it looks like, Could be an inside collusion as well. Anyway I am disappointed that Mr Malik did not describe this as a conspiracy and did not blame the invisible “Foreign hands”(RAW) . Very untypical of Mr Rehman malik.
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@ARK:
Then why not to destroy Taliban so that they are prevented from carrying out Zionist agenda. By the way, Why is Imran Khan opposing antitaliban operation in Wazizristan?
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@Raj
todays infiltrators future freedom fighters.
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@Raj:
Your one liner has evoked so many furious responses. What Pakistanis are not realizing is that, today over 50% of the Pakistanis which include Hindus, Shias, Ahmedis, Mohajirs, Baluch, Hazaras and many others have turned anti Pakistan as they have all been victimized and persecuted, very systematically with much hatred and vengeance. Hatred against all is taught even in government schools and school plays and practiced in every home. Political and religious parties preach hatred too. So, Pakistan today is a fertile ground for anyone who wants to hurt Pakistan. Unfortunately, the way the Pakistanis would react is to preach and practice more hatred towards those. I surely feel that all attacks on military bases and installations definitely had inside help but no one would be caught as they have inside help too.
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freedom fighters = when they attack India.
terrorists/nonmuslims/animals/infiltrators =when they attack pakistan
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