By DPA,
Islamabad : Five militants loyal to Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud were killed Saturday in a shootout in Karachi, the Pakistani police said.
The gunfight broke out in the early hours of the day after the police raided an apartment on a tip-off that the militants were planning attacks in the southern port city, deputy police chief Zafar Bukhari said.
“Our officers told the militants, who were 12 according to our information, to surrender but they opened fire. In retaliatory fire, five of them were killed,” Bukhari said. “The rest managed to escape.”
Security forces also recovered weapons and ammunition from the militants’ hideout.
According to the police official, all the killed militants belonged to the terrorist group run by Mehsud, who has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide attacks across Pakistan over the last two years.
Local politicians and security officials have repeatedly warned that Islamist militants fleeing the military offensives in country’s northwestern region are setting-up sanctuaries in Karachi.
The Pakistan Army launched a major action against Taliban in Swat and three adjoining districts of North Western Frontier Province (NWFP). Two months of fighting left around 1,600 militants dead and many civilians displaced.
As the operation nears conclusion, the government forces are focussing on Mehsud’s hideouts in South Waziristan, a tribal district that borders Afghanistan.
Jets and helicopter gunships Saturday pounded several militant positions in and around Makeen and Ladha areas, the rebels’ strongholds.
“The airstrikes have inflicted heavy casualties on the terrorists but so far we don’t have the exact numbers,” said an intelligence official.