Karachi airport siege: At least 27 dead as Pakistan security forces end confrontation with Taliban militants

Pakistani security forces have cleared the Karachi airport of militants nearly 12 hours after the start of a siege that left at least 27 people dead, a paramilitary official said. Pakistani security forces have cleared the Karachi airport of militants nearly 12 hours after the start of a siege that left at least 27 people dead, a paramilitary official said. "The attack is over and we have cleared the area of all militants," paramilitary Rangers spokesman Sibtain Rizvi told reporters. Security forces were forced to relaunch the military operation several hours after they had first announced the siege was over. The initial assault at the Jinnah International Airport began late Sunday (local time) and raged until dawn, when the military said 10 attackers had been killed. Equipped with suicide vests, grenades and rocket launchers, they had battled security forces in one of the most brazen attacks in years in Pakistan's biggest city. Among the remaining victims were security personnel and airport workers. The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack in revenge for their late leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone strike in November. "We carried out the attack on Karachi airport to avenge the death of Hakimullah Mehsud," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said, dismissing the Pakistani government's recent offer of peace talks as a "tool of war". Pakistan's paramilitary force had earlier said a group of foreign fighters, including ethnic Uzbeks, was involved in the airport attack. The militants had entered the airport through a maintenance area and immediately began firing on security guards. A number of terrorists are believed to have reached the runway area and army commandos sealed the section off. Pakistani security personnel arrive at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.

Flights in and out of the airport were stopped during the lengthy gun battle. Television footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the runway and fires where planes were parked. The attack happened on the same day that at least 23 people, including several Shiite pilgrims, were killed in a gun and suicide attack near the Pakistan-Iran border. Similar raids in the past have been claimed by Taliban militants who rose up against the Pakistani state in 2007 in an insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. Taliban gunmen attacked a Karachi naval base in 2011, destroying two US-made Orion aircraft and killing 10 personnel in a 17-hour siege. Taliban and other militants in uniform carried out a similar raid at Pakistan's military headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in 2009, leaving 23 dead. Prime minister Nawaz Sharif's government began negotiations with the TTP in February, with a ceasefire beginning March 1, but breaking down a month later. The TTP emerged in response to a raid on a radical mosque in Islamabad, but Islamist violence in the country began to surge in 2004 following the army's deployment in the volatile tribal areas.