High Alert in Pakistan After Threats to Military Sites

By SALMAN MASOOD and DECLAN WALSH
Published: August 9, 2013

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Security forces in Islamabad were on high alert for a possible militant attack on Friday following threats against major military installations, the police said. The heightened security alert came hours after American officials evacuated the consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, also on security fears.


Arshad Butt/Associated Press

People rushed an injured boy to a hospital on Friday in Quetta. Gunmen fired on worshippers in an attack on a former provincial minister outside a mosque in southwest Pakistan.

The police said 2,500 officers had been deployed across Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, following intelligence intercepts indicating that militants were planning to attack the headquarters of the Pakistan Air Force and Navy.
Private security guards killed a suicide bomber as he tried to force his way into a Shiite mosque on the edge of the capital, in what appeared to be the latest in a series of sectarian attacks across Pakistan.
Earlier in the week, military commandos patrolled in Margalla Hills, a low chain of hills that overlooks Islamabad and is considered one of the city’s most vulnerable security points.
“Government buildings are under threat but we also have information that terrorists can also strike at a public place,” said a senior police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Meghan Gregonis, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Islamabad, said all but essential staff members had been evacuated from the Lahore consulate.
“It was a precautionary measure,” she said in a telephone interview. “We received specific information regarding the consulate.” She declined to specify the nature of the threat. In Washington, Obama administration officials said it was not linked to the Qaeda threat that has caused the closure of 19 diplomatic missions across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Lahore is the cultural capital of Pakistan and the home city of the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. It has been targeted by militant groups several times in recent years, with attacks on police facilities, intelligence offices, and sporting and cultural events.
But the city is also home to militant groups that operate in plain view, like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for terror attacks in 2008 in Mumbai, India, and whose leader, Hafiz Saeed, lives in a Lahore neighborhood under police protection.
The other two American consulates in Pakistan, in Karachi and Peshawar, have not been affected by the security threats. In any event, all American diplomatic missions in Pakistan would have been closed until Monday because of the annual Id al-Fitr religious holiday, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramandan.
But, Ms. Gregonis said, while most American offices are expected to reopen on Monday, it is not clear when the Lahore consulate will return to normal.
A similar situation occurred in September 2012, when violent riots erupted in Lahore to protest a video clip that insulted the Prophet Muhammad that had been produced in the United States. The protests forced the temporary closure of the consulate and the transfer of staff members to Islamabad.
Video footage of the attempted attack on the Shiite mosque in Islamabad, which was aired by a private television network, showed the suicide bomber approaching the mosque and exchanging fire with a security guard.

The bomber tried to detonate his explosives-laden vest, but they failed to detonate and he was shot dead by the security guards, one of whom sustained serious injuries and later died in a hospital.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/10/world/asia/us-pulls-staff-from-pakistan-consulate-as-violence-continues.html?_r=0