Karachi: Pakistani officials said yesterday they killed an intelligence officer and two alleged operatives of Al Qaeda’s South Asian chapter in a shootout in the southern city of Karachi. The clash followed a raid last Tuesday on an apartment in Gulhsan-e-Iqbal, a middle class residential neighbourhood in the city’s east, a spokesman for the paramilitary Rangers said.
“On seeing Rangers, (the) terrorists opened fire, the Rangers troops fired back and after an exchange of fire two terrorists got killed,” the spokesman said.
An intelligence officer was also killed while a soldier sustained wounds, the Rangers said.
The men were identified as Abdul Ahad and Mohammad Sauleh, said to be Al-Qaeda’s chief in the city and his assistant, respectively.
Little was known of the two men before their deaths and analysts believe security forces often exaggerate the seniority of militants they kill in encounters.
A security official who did not wish to be named said that some relatives of Ahad were also detained in the same neighbourhood.
Al-Qaeda’s South Asian branch was set up last year in what was widely seen as a response to the growing appeal of the Islamic State group in the region.
Karachi, a port city of some 20 million and Pakistan’s economic hub, is frequently hit by Islamist, political and ethnic violence.
Paramilitaries began a sweeping crackdown on alleged militants in the city in 2013 that has led to substantial drop in overall levels of violence. But rights groups have accused police and paramilitary troops of carrying out extrajudicial killings in staged gunfights.
AFP
