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KARACHI: The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack on a naval dockyard on the weekend, claiming they had inside help.
Taliban militants attacked a Karachi naval dockyard in a raid which left an officer and two insurgents dead, officials said Tuesday.
“We claim responsibility for the attack on the navy in Karachi,” spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told AFP.
“We had support from inside the naval force for this attack. This operation was successful because of this support. We will continue targeting security forces like this in future also,” he added.
The Navy said in a statement late on Monday night that “on Saturday a group of miscreants tried to penetrate Pakistan Navy Dockyard area defences at Karachi. Pakistan Navy security personnel responded valiantly and in the ensuing encounter killed two while apprehending four miscreants alive”.
After interrogating the suspects, the navy said in a statement that intelligence agencies had carried out raids to arrest suspected collaborators and accomplices and had recovered “a large quantity of arms and ammunition”.
Ex-navy man killed
City police chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo on Tuesday said that former navy official Owais Jhakrani — the son of AIG Ali Sher Jhakrani — was killed in the attack.
Thebo said that Owais was involved in the navy dockyard attack, and that his body was recovered in the Kala Pani area in the jurisdiction of the Docks police station.
The navy, however, said it had no information on Owais’ involvement, but confirmed that he left naval services a few months ago. The naval spokesperson said that two militants had been killed and that it had no information on Owais' link to the attack.
According to Thebo, Owais’ body has been taken by relatives for burial.
The Taliban have already threatened a bloody response to a military offensive against insurgents in the North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border.
The military launched the offensive in mid-June shortly after a brazen attack on Karachi airport that left dozens dead and extinguished a largely fruitless peace process with the TTP.
The weekend raid was the latest in a series of high-profile attacks on key installations by the Taliban in recent years, including an 2011 assault on a naval base, also in Karachi, and on the military's headquarters in 2009.
The army says it has killed more than 900 militants and lost 82 soldiers since the start of the operation.
