Monday - April 05, 2010

Taliban Attacks US Consulate

Taliban suicide squad attempts to storm US consulate in Peshawar

Taliban fighters using rocket-propelled grenades, car bombs and suicide vests have attempted to storm the United States consulate in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

Five security guards were among seven people killed during the raid in Peshawar and there were several explosions in the area which caused nearby buildings to collapse.

Six militants in two Toyota Corolla cars, laden with explosives, managed to pierce the city’s most heavily-guarded complex, which houses the provincial intelligence headquarters, the American consulate and the homes of several local ministers.

One eyewitness, Hamidullah Jan, said the attackers had successfully penetrated the consulate compound. He said he heard an exchange of gunfire followed by two loud explosions.

Hasan Ali, 25, who was being treated for abdominal injuries from the blast, said he saw the first explosion and was running to safety when a second and third explosion “shook the entire area”.

Senior North West Frontier Province minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour, whose home is 200 yards from the scene of the raid, said he saw six dead bodies, four of whom he said were the remains of terrorists and that suicide vests were close by them.

A Taliban spokesman later claimed responsibility for the attack, which he said targeted the United States consulate in revenge for American drone attacks which have killed a number of senior militant leaders, including the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud and his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud.

“The co-ordinated attack involved a vehicle suicide bomb and terrorists attempting to enter the building using grenades and weapons fire,” American officials said in a statement from their embassy in Islamabad.

There were no reported U.S. casualties in the attack and it is not known if the consulate, situated in a heavily fortified area of the northwest town, suffered any damages.

The Taliban wasted little time in claiming responsibility for the attack as spokesman Azam Tariq told Reuters news agency, “Americans are our enemies. We carried out the attack on their consulate in Peshawar. We plan more such attacks.”

The security barrier near the consulate gate was damaged, and shells from rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades were left lying in the area, which was sealed off by Pakistani police and army, witnesses said.

Police said of the two car bombs, one exploded at a checkpoint 50 metres from the consulate while the other - laden with about 100kg of explosives - went off close to the consulate gate.

At least three blasts were reported and a firefight between security forces and the attackers followed.

Pakistani television showed security forces firing their weapons and clouds of smoke rising over the garrison area of the city, close to the Peshawar offices of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, which was bombed last November.

Stunned that the terrorists had managed to get as far as they did — given the multiple layers of security around the mission — shopkeepers in the nearby downtown Sadar area downed their shutters as security personnel cordoned off roads leading to the consulate and the Peshawar headquarters of the ISI which had faced a similar attack last year.

The blast was so powerful that it formed a huge crater in the road and brought down a boundary wall. Claiming that they had struck at the U.S. mission to avenge the drone attacks in North Waziristan, the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP-Pakistan wing of the Taliban) TTP spokesman told AFP that there would be more such attacks on “any place where there are Americans’’.

In August 2008, the top U.S. diplomat at the consulate survived a gun attack on her armored vehicle. Three months later, gunmen shot and killed an American in Peshawar as he was traveling to work for a U.S.-funded aid program in the region.

The last attack against a U.S. mission in Pakistan was in Karachi in 2006 when a militant rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the car of an American diplomat near the consulate, killing him and three others.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/05/2010 at 01:02 PM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs • War On Terror •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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