Militants attack Pakistan navy base, four killed

Flames and smokes belches out from a Pakistani base after an attack by militants in Karachi on May 22, 2011.

Militants attacked a Pakistani naval aviation base on Sunday, killing at least four people, officials said, the latest attack on a heavily guarded military installation in Pakistan. 

Senior police official Tahir Naveed said attackers were inside the Mehran base in Karachi fighting with base personnel.

Witnesses said they could hear sounds of gunshots and see smoke rising from the base. Officials said between 15 and 20 attackers were inside the base, and had attacked three hangars housing aircraft. Eight explosions were reported from the base.

"Three hangers were hit. There is some damage to aircraft or helicopters," an intelligence official said.

A least a dozen ambulances were parked outside the base, waiting to take wounded to hospital. Pakistani military and paramilitary reinforcements were pouring in, with four vehicles carrying about 10 troops each moving into the base.

Taliban militants, who have vowed to avenge the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by US special forces, have carried out several attacks since his death on May 2.

An intelligence official said four people had been killed and five wounded in the Karachi raid.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the "terrorist" attack at the naval base.

"Such a cowardly act of terror could not deter the commitment of the government and people of Pakistan to fight terrorism," Gilani said in statement.

Pakistan television reported that a P-3 Orion maritime surveillance plane was attacked in the assault.

The Karachi attack evoked memories of an assault on Pakistan's army headquarters in the town of Rawalpindi in 2009, and revived concerns that even the most well-guarded institutions in the country remain vulnerable to militants.

Pakistan has faced a wave of bombings and gun assaults over the last few years, some of them claimed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.

Others have been blamed on al-Qaida-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military which have since slipped out of control.

ABBOTTABAD

A US special forces raid on May 2 which found and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad has also revived suspicions that militants may be receiving help from some people within the security establishment.

Pakistan and the United States say the senior leadership in the country did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad.

On April 28, suspected militants detonated a roadside bomb in Karachi, killing four members of the navy, the third attack on the navy in a week.

The attack came two days after two bombs hit buses carrying navy personnel, killing four people and wounding 56. Taliban insurgents took responsibility for the twin attacks.