Overnight raid: Intelligence official martyred, two militants killed in gun-battle

The deceased militant was a Karachi-based commander of al-Qaeda

KARACHI: An official of a covert agency was martyred while two terrorists were killed during a night-long gun battle in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, late on Monday night. The deceased terrorists were a Karachi-based al-Qaeda commander and his accomplice.

Monday night turned into a nightmare for the residents of an apartment block - Fahad Gardens, located in Block 13-D of Gulshan-e-Iqbal. The residents said they could hardly sleep a wink throughout the night due to the constant bursts of gunfire that echoed across the block for the better part of the night.

It was around 2:30am on Monday night when a large contingent of Rangers personnel, accompanied by intelligence officials and police, reached Fahad Gardens. The law enforcers cordoned off the surrounding areas.

Read: Paramilitary action: Five alleged militants killed in Rangers raid

Witnesses said that the militants opened fire at the personnel as they took up positions for the raid. The exchange of fire continued for over two hours.

The Rangers spokesperson explained the raid as an intelligence-driven operation. He confirmed that two militants were killed while an assistant director of the agency was martyred. A Rangers soldier was also wounded in the operation, he added.

The deceased militants were later identified as Abdul Ahad, son of Kamal Shah and Muhammad Saleh, son of Abdul Aziz, while the official of the intelligence agency was identified as Sajjad, son of Ghulam Muhammad.

Read: Two security personnel, 15 militants killed in North Waziristan

According to sources, Ahad was a Karachi-based commander of the al-Qaeda, while Saleh was visiting him. The law enforcers also seized a laptop, Jihadi literature and arms from the suspects' possession while a motorcycle that was being used by the militants was also impounded. The militants were planning to carry out a major terror activity in the city.

Sources said that a woman was also taken into custody from the apartment and was shifted to an undisclosed location for further questioning. The officials concerned, however, did not confirm her arrest.

Living in hiding

Residents of the area told The Express Tribune that the militants were living on the third floor of the apartment building and used to enter and exit the house wearing helmets after parking their motorcycles.

The residents claimed that the suspects had purchased the house from a man named Anwar who had owned the flat until a few months ago. Anwar is a former association head of the apartment building. Security officials have also traced the previous owner of the flat to interrogate him.

"They had closed all the windows of the flat with concrete blocks," said a resident of the apartment, who wished to remain anonymous. "When quizzed by the union about it, they argued that they suffered from dust allergy and had therefore blocked the windows." The flat, meanwhile, has been sealed by law enforcers.

Sources said that the militants were well-educated and the investigators were also trying to ascertain their links with recent terror activities, including the Safoora bus attack.

A senior security official dealing with the case said that a very dangerous commander of al-Qaeda, Ahad, was among the militants killed in the encounter. "[This was a] very dangerous group trying to use technology to carry out major terrorist acts in the country," he explained. "Parents need to pay attention to college and university kids as terrorists are brainwashing them by giving examples of wrongly-quoted verses to kill their own people."

Though several al-Qaeda men have been killed in Karachi in the past few years, this particular raid has a lot in common with the raid conducted by Rangers on November 18, 2011, in a residential apartment in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. An al-Qaeda commander, Moeed Abdus Salam, had blown himself up with a hand grenade to avoid arrest when the Rangers had raided his apartment on the third floor of the apartment building. Moeed held Pakistani and American nationalities and was a frequent visitor to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco and Mauritius. In the wake of his death, several attacks were carried out by his group on the Rangers in reaction to the killing of their leader.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2015.