At least six terrorists were killed and another was captured alive after Pakistani security forces foiled an attack on a Sindh Rangers headquarters in Karachi on Saturday night. The assault left four Rangers personnel dead and marked the city's first major terrorist attack since October 2024.
According to security sources, the attackers, believed to be members of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), targeted the Sindh Rangers' Bhittai Wing headquarters in Karachi's Gulistan-e-Jauhar area at around 8.30 pm.
The encounter lasted nearly 90 minutes before Special Security Unit (SSU) commandos and the Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) joined Rangers personnel to neutralise the attackers.
Preliminary investigations indicate the militants drove a vehicle through the main gate of the Rangers compound before entering the premises and hurling hand grenades, triggering multiple explosions.
Heavy gunfire followed as Rangers personnel immediately took defensive positions and engaged the attackers.
Authorities sealed off the compound and nearby roads during the operation, while residents were advised to remain indoors. Power outages were also reported in parts of the surrounding neighbourhoods.
Sindh Inspector General of Police Javed Alam Odho initially said three Rangers personnel had been killed, though the death toll later rose to four.
"More details are being collected, but initial investigations confirm the terrorists arrived in a vehicle and entered the compound by ramming the main gate. The Rangers personnel responded rapidly," he said.
Odho added that an explosion was heard when the attack began, although its exact cause was not immediately known.
"What is confirmed is that as soon as the attack took place, the Rangers personnel immediately took positions and engaged the attackers in a gun battle," he said.
The attack was claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a militant faction of the TTP that has primarily operated in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along the Afghan border.
The group has been responsible for several attacks targeting civilians, security personnel and government installations.
The Karachi assault is the first terrorist attack in the city since October 2024, when two Chinese engineers were killed in a suicide bombing near Karachi airport claimed by the banned Balochistan Liberation Army.
The last major TTP-linked attack in Karachi occurred in February 2023, when militants stormed the Karachi Police Office on Shahrah-e-Faisal.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah directed the provincial police chief and Karachi's additional inspector general to submit a detailed report on the attack.
Emergency service Rescue 1122 Sindh said it dispatched response teams after receiving reports of an explosion near Gulistan-e-Jauhar Block 5.
The attack comes amid heightened tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Islamabad has repeatedly accused Afghanistan's Taliban government of providing safe haven to the TTP, enabling cross-border attacks, while Pakistan's military has conducted strikes on alleged TTP hideouts inside Afghanistan.
