Eight killed in attack on Pakistan army camp
Gunmen killed eight people in an attack on a Pakistani army camp near a city where thousands of hardline Islamists stopped on their way to the capital to protest against the decision to reopen the Nato supply line to Afghanistan, police said.
Police were searching for the attackers, and it was unclear if any of the Islamist protesters were involved, said Basharat Mahmood, police chief in the eastern city of Gujrat near where the attack occurred.
“It is surely a terrorist attack,” said Mr Mahmood.
The gunmen who attacked the camp were riding in a car and on motorcycles. They killed seven soldiers at the camp and a policeman who tried to intercept them, said Mr Mahmood.
The camp near Gujrat was attacked at around 5.20am, a little less than an hour after the leaders of the Difah-e-Pakistan, or Defence of Pakistan, protest movement finished delivering speeches inside the city, said the police.
The group, which includes hardline Islamist politicians and religious leaders, left the city of Lahore.
They travelled about halfway, spent the night in Gujrat and reached Islamabad where they staged a rally on the main avenue running through the city toward the parliament.
Police estimated the crowd at 30,000 to 40,000 people. Among the speakers was Hafiz Saeed, who heads what is widely believed to be a front for a militant group that is blamed for the attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008 that killed more than 160 people.
The US had a 10 million US dollars bounty on Saeed, but he operates freely in the country.
Pakistan says it does not have enough evidence to arrest Saeed, but many suspect the government is reluctant to move against him and other militant leaders because they have long-standing ties with the country’s military and intelligence service.
During his speech, Saeed said if the Nato supply routes remain open the US will use it as an opportunity to intervene in the region.
The Pakistani Taliban took responsibility for the attack on the soldiers.
