Attacks by The Taliban in Pakistan Mehran Naval Base

Last night, well informed and coordinated the team of a dozen Pakistani Taliban gunmen fought their way into the heavily guarded depth Mehran Naval Air Station in the port city of Karachi. Armed with AK-47 rifles, RPGs, hand grenades, and prepared for a long battle with food and water, the attackers destroyed two American-made aircraft, P-3C Orion maritime surveillance. Operating RPG fire, damaged several other planes, rockets firing and compensation columns of smoke rose. The jihadists have persevered Pakistan Navy and commandos of the army for about 16 hours before finally being overwhelmed. At least 10 Pakistani soldiers were killed.

Raid, coming just weeks after U.S. Navy SEAL swept Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, marked the second time this month that the Pakistani army is certainly the most powerful institutions were caught out considerably.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, based mainly in the tribal area of ​​Waziristan, said the operation was launched to avenge the martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. This makes the third such attack claimed retaliation by Pakistani militants since the death of Bin Laden. A double suicide bombing killed earlier this month about 90 paramilitary recruits in northwestern Pakistan, where they were going, and last week a bomb has wounded at least two Americans who were in an armored vehicle near consulate U.S. in Peshawar.

Mehran the raid, but the psychological impact more. It marks the militant attacks on the most daring since the Pakistani army in October 2009, when about a dozen armed men attacked and seized parts of the headquarters of the Pakistani army near Islamabad for 22 hours. “It is without doubt a major security lapse on the part of the army,” says retired Pakistani Army Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. “It also shows the initiative appears to be in the hands of jihadi elements benefiting from the old security system we have. “

Despite claims by militants that it was revenge, military analysts, Pakistani intelligence officers and even doubt that the Afghan Taliban militants planned and executed this operation is relatively complex, three short weeks. Instead, said an operation like this, all the signs of the end of 2008 against Pakistani militants in India’s financial capital Mumbai, the most likely took more time to prepare.

As in the Mumbai operation, carried out by the organizers and gunmen who have had past links with the Pakistani military, the attackers had a thorough knowledge of the target, were well trained and tested, there was The good radio communications, food and enough fire power and even water and prepare for a long siege. “They had a well thought out and detailed plan,” said Masood. “It was something that just happened ad hoc. [Activism] can say it was in retaliation for the death of Bin Laden, but in reality the plan of this attack appears to have been much earlier.”