Nuclear arsenal safety questioned as 10 die in Taliban attack on Pakistan base

KAMRA, Pakistan - Agence France-Presse

Pakistani security stand guard at the entrance of Pakistan's air force base in Kamra. AP photo

Heavily armed militants stormed a Pakistani air force base today, sparking clashes that left 10 people dead and raised concerns about the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal.
 
One security official was killed and a plane damaged in the pre-dawn assault at PAF Base Minhas claimed by the Taliban as militants again showed their ability to penetrate a sensitive military site five years into an insurgency.
 
The first strike on a base in more than a year came amid speculation that Pakistan could bow to US demands for an operation against militants in their main fortress of North Waziristan, in the tribal belt on the Afghan border.
 
An official denied there were nuclear weapons on the heavily guarded base, but the audacious assault raised further questions in the West about the dangers of Pakistan's atomic weapons falling into extremists' hands.
 
The Pakistan Air Force said nine attackers dressed in military uniforms and armed with rocket propelled-grenades and suicide vests targeted the base and adjacent Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at 2:00 am (2100 GMT Wednesday).
 
The complex assembles Mirage and, with Chinese help, JF-17 fighter jets.
 
PAF Minhas, in the town of Kamra in Punjab province 60 kilometres (35 miles) northwest of Islamabad, has been attacked twice before.
 
"Eight miscreants were killed inside the Minhas base boundary wall and one miscreant exploded himself outside the perimeters where he was hiding," the air force announced.
 
It said there had been a shootout "for more than two hours" and 10 hours after the assault began, spokesman Tariq Mahmood confirmed the base was "totally safe".
 
The Pakistani Taliban said planes at the base were being used to kill its fighters.
 
Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan dedicated the attack to late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and claimed four Taliban fighters were killed after destroying three aircraft and killed a dozen soldiers.
 
Witnesses said the attackers came round the back, exploiting the holiest night of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to remain undetected as long as possible.
 
"Most of the male residents (from the village at the back) were in mosques for special prayers," local resident Athar Abbas told Express Television.
 
"I heard three or four explosions, there was heavy gunfire also," he said. "It appears that the militants arrived using a village track and climbed over the wall." One officer told AFP that he saw flames after waking up for his late night meal, eaten during the dawn-to-dusk Muslim fasting month.
 
"There was an announcement by megaphone for soldiers not to move from the barracks and we were forbidden from going to the area where I saw the fire," he said. Special forces and police were scrambled to the scene.
 
Air force spokesman Mahmood said one security official had been killed, and the base commander wounded in the shoulder. Previous Taliban assaults on Pakistani military bases have exacted far higher casualty tolls.
 
In May 2011, it took 17 hours to quell an attack on an air base in Karachi claimed by the Taliban, piling embarrassment on the armed forces just three weeks after US troops killed bin Laden in Pakistan.
 
Pakistan has been on alert for independence day on Tuesday and the Muslim festival of Eid, which is expected to begin at the weekend.
 
On Tuesday, the head of the army, General Ashfaq Kayani, used his independence day address to describe the war on terror as "our own war and a just war" -- not the American conflict as often portrayed.
 
He said "no state can afford a parallel system of governance and militias", and called on the nation to stand united or face the risk of a "civil war situation".
 
Pakistan says 35,000 of its people, including more than 3,000 soldiers, have been killed as a result of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks and the 2001 US-led invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan.
 
Foreign ministry spokesman Moazzam Ahmad Khan was Thursday forced to deny any danger of Pakistan's nuclear warheads falling into the wrong hands.
 
"We have a robust command and control, so nobody should really worry about the security and safety of our assets," he told reporters.
 
The base in Kamra was most recently targeted on October 23, 2009 when a suicide bomber killed eight people at a checkpoint.