Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) A well-coordinated attack by heavily armed terrorists at a Pakistani naval base in Karachi has once again revealed the grave security dangers the increasingly unstable country is facing, experts here said Monday.

Arun Bhagat, former head of India’s internal spy wing Intelligence Bureau, likened the attack to the ones in Mumbai in 2008 and in New York in 2001.

“It would rank as one of the major strikes in the world. Attacking a military establishment where one expects 100 percent security even in peacetime in absurd,” Bhagat told IANS.

With 16 dead in Karachi, not even the so-called heavily secured military bases seemed secure after a large number of terrorists - their number estimated between 10 and 25 - stormed the PNS Mehran naval base Sunday night. They were armed with automatic weapons, rocket launchers and grenades. The seige ended after 15 hours and killed 12 security personnel and four of the attackers, who exploded themselves at the base.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was to avenge the May 2 killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

The attack came despite open warnings from terror groups and reports from Pakistani intelligence that there would be retaliatory attacks by militants sympathetic to Osama.

The attack is not the first one on Pakistani military installations, which remain on the radar of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But Commodore (retd) Uday Bhaskar said: “This is indeed the most audacious one, given the way the militants sneaked in.”

Bhaskar and Bhagat both did “not rule out” the possibility of the complicity of insiders with militants that helped to carry out the attack.

“It appears so from all accounts. There is something, there is some collusion,” said Bhaskar, a former deputy director of defence ministry-funded think tank Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, who now heads the National Maritime Foundation think tank.

Bhagat agreed. “The terrorists had done their homework properly and were privy to the complex. They had rehearsed like the militants had done for (the) Mumbai (attack).”

The experts also faulted the Pakistani authorities’ “duplicity” in tackling terror.

Bhagat believes the Pakistani establishment won’t be able to fight terror unless they “shed the duplicity”.

“That is the dichotomy. For Pakistan, the message has been lound and clear. Show an intent of purpose.

“You cannot run with hares and hunt with hounds,” he said, referring to Pakistan’s alleged support to anti-India militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and its offensive against the Tehreek-e-Taliban and the Al Qaeda.

Bhaskar said: “They are unable to acknowledge or they refuse to acknowledge where the threat is coming from. They support some militant groups and target others. There has to be some kind of candid introspection on the part of the Pakistani authorities about that,” he said.