PAKISTAN: Four die in a battle between police and militants in Karachi

Record ID: 376593

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Four die in a battle between police and militants in Karachi
  • Date: 30th January 2008
  • Summary: PEOPLE AND MEDIA CROWDING OUTSIDE HOSPITAL CAMERA CREWS FILMING AMBULANCE ARRIVING BODIES BEING TAKEN OUT FROM THE BACK OF THE AMBULANCE
  • Embargoed: 14th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVADDKR9ZWDI8PZB213KL84M4YT2
  • Story Text: A gun battle between police and militants leaves four dead in Karachi.
    Police battled militants holed up in a house on the outskirts of the southern city of Karachi for several hours till late in the evening on Tuesday (January 29).
    Provincial interior minister Akhtar Zamin said two policemen and two of the gunmen had been killed.
    Authorities did not know which group the gunmen belonged to, he said.
    The shootout began when a police team surrounded a three-storey building in Karachi's Shah Latif area to arrest suspected terrorists.
    The exchange of fire that lasted over three hours, officials said.
    Later, the police and paramilitary troops captured the hideout recovering arms and ammunition, police said.
    "We have recovered (from their possessions) some SMGs (rifles), Kalashnikovs, rockets, rocket launchers and different iron and steel material that is used in different kinds of blasts," Manzoor Mughal, a senior police official told reporters.
    Pakistan has seen a wave of rising militancy in recent days.
    Increasingly, so-called Pakistani Taliban have been mounting attacks in Pakistani towns and cities, many aimed at security forces and other government targets.
    The government and the American CIA have blamed a Pakistani Taliban leader based in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, for the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last month, and for a string of other attacks.
    Many al Qaeda members, including Uzbeks and Arabs, and Taliban militants took refuge in North and South Waziristan, as well as in other areas on the Pakistani side of the border after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
    This month security forces have been battling Mehsud's men in various parts of South Waziristan and more than 150 militants and more than 20 soldiers have been killed.
    A missile strike on a house in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border killed 10 suspected militants, four of them foreigners, security officials said on Tuesday.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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