Karachi airport assault: Police claim breakthrough in airport attack probe

Arrests four men suspected to be involved in the assault

KARACHI: Four months after the deadly assault on Karachi airport, Sindh police on Tuesday claimed to have made a ‘major breakthrough’ in the case by arresting four men suspected to be involved in the atrocity.

On June 8 this year, militants had launched an attack at Karachi Airport and killed at least 27 people including Airport Security Force (ASF) personnel. All the ten attackers were subsequently killed by security forces.



The four suspects were arrested during raids in different parts of Karachi and were identified as Sarmad Siddiqui, Nadeem alias Burger alias Mullah, Asif Zaheer and Master Essa.

These suspects are allegedly associated with different outfits – al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Harktul Jihad-e-Islami (HJI) – and have had ties with other local and foreign militants groups, police said.

“The arrested suspects used to provide logistical support to the attackers,” explained Crime Investigation Department (CID)’s acting Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Saqib Ismail Memon at a press conference on Tuesday.

Besides supplying weapons, the arrested suspects also provided the attackers with the ASF uniforms, vehicles and accommodation for their stay in Karachi near the airport.

“Not only al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) but militants of other stripes also played a vital role in the brazen assault,” he said.

He also claimed that the team of al-Qaeda and Taliban was in touch with their cohorts in Balochistan. The entire planning for the attack, he said, was done in that province.

“A training centre near Afghanistan border provided training to the attackers. These suspects provided Rs20 million to establish the training centre, which is still operating and receiving finances from Karachi,” he said.

The police officer claimed that the suspects were also involved in the murder of two people – Azhar Abbas and Naeem – and had also been arrested in the past in different cases of terrorism. “But earlier they managed to secure their release from the courts,” he added.

The CID’s Counter Terrorism and Financial Crime Unit chief Raja Omar Khattab said the suspects had also links with terrorists involved in the August 14 attack at an airport in Quetta.

“They had also links with the five suicide bombers, who were killed on January 8, 2010 when a bomb accidently went off inside their hideout located near Karachi’s Police Training Centre,” Khattab explained.

Initially, TTP had claimed responsibility for the attack and police had nominated the TTP leadership in the FIR.

However, later Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) claimed credit for the assault. Interestingly, after the IMU claimed responsibility, the TTP spokesman later said it was a joint Taliban-IMU operation.

“The Karachi airport attack was a joint venture of al Qaeda, the IMU, the TTP, the LeJ and the HJI,” said a senior CID officer.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2014.