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Karachi international airport reopens after siege which killed 30

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the assault on the airport, which began last night.

Updated 10.32pm

AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

THIRTY PEOPLE WERE killed as Pakistan’s military fought an all-night battle today with Taliban gunmen who besieged Karachi airport.

The assault has left Pakistan’s nascent peace process with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in tatters and officials in the northwest reported that some 25,000 people had fled a restive tribal district in the past 48 hours, fearing a long-awaited ground offensive.

Ten militants were among the dead in the assault on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport, the latest spectacular offensive to be launched by the TTP in an insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives since 2007.

Families of seven airport workers blocked Karachi’s main road demanding authorities work to free their relatives who became trapped in cold-storage facilities after apparently shutting themselves inside to escape the carnage.

“We are looking into this and according to the families some seven people were trapped inside the cold storage and were in contact with the families on cell phone,” said Abid Qaimkhani, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority.

AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

The attack began just before midnight Sunday. At around dawn, the military said that all 10 of the attackers had been killed.

Some of the gunmen were dressed in army uniform, as authorities put their mangled bodies, assault rifles, grenades and rocket launchers on show for the press. At least three detonated their suicide vests, witnesses said, and one severed head formed part of the grisly display.

“The main objective of the terrorists was to destroy the aircraft on the ground but there was only minor damage to two to three aircraft,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told a press conference at the airport late Monday.

“Pakistan’s national assets are safe and secure.” After authorities initially declared the airport cleared, an AFP reporter witnessed fresh gunfire break out inside the airport — where explosions and fires had erupted during the night — prompting security forces to relaunch the operation.

Pakistan People comfort a family member of a security officer killed in the siege. Fareed Khan / AP/Press Association Images Fareed Khan / AP/Press Association Images / AP/Press Association Images

The bodies of the 18 victims – including 11 airport security guards and four workers from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) – were taken to a Karachi hospital where another 26 wounded people were being treated, a hospital official said.

The charred remains of two cargo terminal employees were later recovered tonight, bring the toll to 30, Qaimkhani said.

PIA spokesman Mashud Tajwar said no airline passengers were caught up in the incident.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s office issued a statement “commending the bravery” of security forces and saying normal flight operations would resume in the afternoon, while Afghan President Hamid Karzai – who is battling his own Taliban insurgency – condemned the attack in a statement.

Pakistani security forces examine ammunition confiscated from attackers. AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

The attack took place just three kilometres from the Mehran naval base, which the Taliban laid siege to three years ago, destroying two US-made Orion aircraft and killing 10 personnel in a 17-hour operation.

The group also carried out a raid on Pakistan’s military headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in 2009, leaving 23 dead including 11 troops and three hostages.

 Latest revenge 

The TTP said the brazen attack on the airport was its latest revenge for the killing of its leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in November.

TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said the government had used peace talks as a ruse, and promised more attacks to come in retaliation against recent air strikes in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Talks to end the TTP’s bloody seven-year insurgency have been under way since February, after Sharif returned to power last year, but little clear progress has resulted and more than 300 people have been killed in militant strikes since then.

Analysts say Sharif is under pressure to act and risks angering the army if he does not authorise a swift retaliation.

Thousands flee tribal district 

In restive North Waziristan tribal district some 1,000 kilometres north of Karachi, residents and officials told AFP 58,000 people, mainly women and children had fled the area for different parts of the northwest, fearing a long-awaited offensive was imminent.

The exodus has increased rapidly in recent days, with more than 25,000 fleeing their homes in the last 48 hours alone, a government official in Peshawar said.

“I am taking my family to a safer location,” said one resident who did not wish to be named.

AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

The latest rumours of an operation began after government talks with the TTP broke down in April, and were further stoked by the air strikes and the widespread distribution of a leaflet from a local warlord last week warning residents they should leave their homes by June 10.

An offensive in North Waziristan has been rumoured for years but analysts remain cautious about whether the military has the capacity to attempt such a move without assistance from the Afghan side of the border where militants are likely to flee in the event of an attack.

© – AFP 2014

First published 8.18am

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Read: One in eight women suffers domestic abuse during pregnancy

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    Mute Dave Walsh
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:08 AM

    Well paid full-time jobs gone. what’s out is there is mostly short-term or zero hour part time positions. And if you attempt to join a union, your gone.. Not to mention if your older… In a few weeks they people who lost there jobs will be long forgotten by Dublin…

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:03 AM

    Multinationals aren’t the benign overlords of FFG Mythology but relentlessly greedy entities that only care about enriching their own shareholders.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:12 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: The purpose of every business is to create value for a shareholder by delivering value to a customer.

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:36 AM

    @Peter Carroll: Yet we treat them as if their purpose is to improve our domestic economy, structuring our entire tax code in their favour while ordinary Irish workers get constantly shafted.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:44 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: No, that’s our (the State’s) purpose. The multi-nationals come here to take advantage of and benefit from the incentives on offer. Everyone knows that that’s the deal.

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:57 AM

    @Peter Carroll: The state is doing a much better job enriching obscenely wealthy companies than it is taking care of it’s own citizens. The Novartis employees will have to live on €200 a week until they find another job, many of them won’t be able to pay rent or a mortgage, but hey, the hedge fund owners who invest in companies like Novartis might be able to buy more private jets so it’s all good.

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    Mute Dave O'Keeffe
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    Oct 24th 2019, 8:33 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: what do you suggest? The vast majority of businesses are run the same.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 10:08 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: I am not making a moral point. You can deal with the State through the ballot box, if you can get enough people to agree with you. Ironically, Ireland has one of the worlds largest aircraft leasing businesses!

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    Mute Fred Coloe
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    Oct 24th 2019, 10:14 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: These companies have been employing people for decades allowing said employees to build their own standard of living. Are you serious with your comment? Do you think the workers would have preferred unemployment instead?!

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    Mute Kieran Woods
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    Oct 24th 2019, 3:39 PM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: Absolute rubbish. Multinational manufacturers are huge net exporters which contribute massively to our economy without which our exchequer would not be able to provide many of its services. They have given hundreds of thousands of well paid jobs which in turn supports local suppliers, contractors and businesses. What should we do, run them away and return to making clay pipes and fiddles and become third world?

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    Mute Richard Mccarthy
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    Oct 24th 2019, 11:23 PM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: So just what do you suggest is the answer,are you suggesting we force multinationals to keep employing people against their will,they wouldn’t even set up manufactoring plants in this country in the first place, it would be much better if people like you with a huge chip on their shoulder got rid of the victim mentality and done something positive.

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    Mute Michael Patrick Newell
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    Oct 24th 2019, 9:00 AM

    Sadly when a country like ours, who over rely on the mercy of these up and leave at any time multinationals, then you always run the risk of huge job culls at times. However while the government can’t be blamed for this, it is a bit of a stomach churner that these large and very wealthy companies are given special treatment in relation to things like the tax they pay here, while home grown businesses are made to pay higher amounts all because they don’t maybe have the same financial muscle or employee numbers, but will likely last longer and not do a runner when a better opportunity in some other low level country presents itself to move operations there and leave its employees jobless…..

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    Mute Corkonian In Dublin
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    Oct 24th 2019, 11:48 AM

    The sad thing is that by announcing the job losses now to start taking place from April / May next year, actually helps Fine Gael’s election prospects in a Spring 2020 election. If those job loses were announced in April with immediate impact, it would be difficult campaigns for Simon “Get me to a BRXIT or other EU meeting to avoid home trouble” Coveney. Like Michéal “I want all the power, but not during BRXIT” Martin, they have failed the city and county of Cork.
    FFG forget that there are people outside the M50.

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