Rockets rain on Kakul

Officials blame terrorists for the attack, which came a day after Army Chief General Kayani visited Abbottabad.

ABBOTABAD:

In a pre-dawn attack on Friday, militants rained rockets at the Pakistan Military Academy Kakul in an unusual burst of violence in the usually tranquil town of Abbottabad.

The rockets damaged the academy’s outer wall which is just 500 metres from the site of the US Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden, officials said.

DCO Abbottabad Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah confirmed the report of the attack and said that attackers fired nine rockets from a hilltop of village Dheri which overlooks Abbottabad. However, it was unclear who fired the rockets from behind a mosque in mountains overlooking the Kakul Academy.

Officials blamed terrorists for the attack, which came a day after Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited Abbottabad to chair a high level conference, military sources told The Express Tribune.

DCO Shah later confirmed that no arrests had yet been made and that a rooftop room had also been damaged in the attack.

“We have a security system and checkpoints on the roads, but the place they used as a launch pad is accessible from all sides and there are mountains at the back of this place,” Shah told a private TV channel.

“At this stage we cannot say who was involved, but they are terrorists and we are investigating how they managed to reach this place.”

In the major security breach, the academy’s outer wall and a portion of a mosque and a laundromat located nearby were damaged. Over 700 male and female cadets were undergoing training courses with a larger number of training staff when the attack took place but no one was injured, a source told The Express Tribune. “Three of the nine rockets landed near the boundary wall of PMA while one of them hit the external wall and damaged it. But all the inmates escaped unhurt fortunately,” said Shah, adding that the five other rockets fell short of their target.

“We have launched a search operation,” Shah added.

Rashid Khan, a villager in the area told The Express Tribune that his cattle pen was damaged when one of the rockets exploded on its boundary wall. Other villagers said that high tension lines of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) were also destroyed in the assault suspending power supply to nearby villages, which was restored later in the evening.

“I was asleep when at around 3:20am I woke up to the sound of the explosion outside,” said Mukamal Khan, a resident of Khola, adding that the rocket developed a crater in his wheat field and caused minor damage to the gate of his house.

According to sources, the rockets were Russian-made and security forces had seized nine launch pads and batteries of motorcycles used for propelling the rockets. The attackers also dropped large quantities of chili powder to cover their tracks and mislead sniffer dogs, the source added.

Meanwhile, a search operation has been launched by the security agencies and according to a police source, a suspect has been booked and is being interrogated at an undisclosed location.  Although no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, a source did not rule out the possibility of al Qaeda’s hand.

“There are 70% chances of al Qaeda’s involvement as its men have recently suffered setback following the killing of one of its key operatives, Aslam Awan in a drone attack on January 11,” said the source, requesting anonymity.

Aslam Awan was a resident of Abbottabad and studied at Manchester University UK, where he allegedly joined the terrorist network, according to media reports.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2012.