Islamabad: A fierce gun battle broke out between Pakistani security personnel and militants holed up in a house on the outskirts of Peshawar leaving six people, including a policeman, dead on Sunday, hours after an abortive bid by Taliban to storm an air force base in the city claimed nine lives.
Apart from the policeman, five militants were killed in the clash which took place in Pawaka, a suburb of Peshawar.
Three of the militants were gunned down by police and army troops while two others blew themselves up after they were surrounded by soldiers, the military’s media arm said. Two more policemen were injured in the clash.
The dead militants were part of a group of Taliban suicide attackers who tried to attack the Peshawar airbase on Saturday night. Residents of Pawaka, located a short distance from the airport, said five militants took shelter in a house being built in the area at about 7.30 am.
\The armed men demanded that they should be given a car. They also warned people not to alert the police, local residents told media.
Police and army troops reached the spot a few hours later after they were alerted by local residents. Security forces sealed off the area and conducted a search and clearance operation to flush out the militants.
Three militants were gunned down in the alleys of Pawaka while the other two detonated their explosive vests after security forces surrounded the compound where they were hiding.
Officials said the bomb disposal squad were called in to defuse explosives and suicide vests. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said troops had been on high alert as some of the militants involved in yesterday’s attack had escaped after the airport was surrounded by troops.
The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan earlier claimed responsibility for the attack on Bacha Khan International Airport last night, with a spokesman saying the Pakistan Air Force base was the target of the attackers.
The militants fired five rockets at the airport and nearby areas and used an explosives-laden vehicle in the assault. Four civilians and five terrorists were killed during the attack.
Troops sealed off the areas around the airport and declared them clear only after a 10-hour search operation. Troops carried out controlled detonations of explosives that were planted by the attackers during Saturday night’s attack. Several homes and cars were destroyed by the rockets fired by the militants. (PTI)