ISLAMABAD––The ability of only six armed extremists to storm a Pakistani navy base in the city of Karachi and hold out for 16 hours raised new fears on Monday about the security of the country’s military installations, including its nuclear weapons sites.
The attack, which began late Sunday night and lasted into Monday afternoon, left 10 Pakistani security personnel dead. At least two US-supplied planes were destroyed. Six Americans who were providing training at the site were rescued by Pakistani security forces while the shootout was going on.
It was an ignominious attack for Pakistan’s armed forces, coming three weeks after American helicopters flew deep into Pakistan undetected in a two-hour operation that resulted in the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
“This was a total failure of naval intelligence and the naval security system,” said Javed Hussain, a retired brigadier general who served in Pakistan’s elite commando force, the Special Service Group. “They’ve apparently not recognized the fact that Pakistan is at war. How is security at nuclear sites any different?”
Since mid-2007 Pakistani jihadists have turned on their own country, inspired by al-Qaeda. Most attacks have been suicide bombings, but Sunday’s attack wasn’t the first assault on a heavily guarded military installation. Squads of gun-toting extremists launched three similar attacks in 2009, including one on the country’s military headquarters at Rawalpindi in a 24-hour siege that killed 14 soldiers and officers.
“Time and again these people have humiliated the armed forces,” Hussain said. “We are underestimating the power of these terrorists to do physical as well as mental damage. The armed forces are no longer held in awe. People have starting feeling insecure.”
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the attackers had used a blind spot between security cameras to enter the base unnoticed, suggesting that someone on the base had helped plan the attack.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said the attack was intended to avenge bin Laden’s killing.
“It was revenge for the martyrdom of Osama bin Laden,” said the spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan. “It was the proof that we are still united and powerful.”
