KARACHI: The head of Al-Qaeda’s Karachi network and his accomplice were shot dead in a densely-populated Gulshan-i-Iqbal neighbourhood in the early hours of Tuesday in a shootout with personnel of law enforcement and intelligence agencies that also claimed the life of an intelligence officer, officials said. The authorities claimed that the killing of the two operatives of the globally-declared terrorist outfit as a major success, citing that they were present in Karachi for a “major activity” that could either be an attack on one of the “sensitive installations” or assassination of “key security officials”. Both the militants were young and the resistance they had put against the law-enforcement agencies indicated that they were highly trained, the officials believed.

Hourslong shootout also claims the life of an intelligence officer

They said the intelligence-based operation began after 2am when heavy contingents of police and Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, cordoned off the locality in Gulshan-i-Iqbal’s block 13-E housing apartments along Sir Shah Mohammad Sulaiman Road.

A senior security official while wishing not to be named said: “Days of intelligence exercise led to the reports about presence of some high-value targets in one of the apartment buildings and finally it emerged that it was Fahad Garden’s flat E-15 on third floor that housed the militants.”

As the Rangers soldiers backed by policemen and intelligence officials moved in after hours-long siege of the area, they came under deadly attack that left a civilian assistant director of the premier intelligence agency, Mohammad Sajjad, dead. “The attack from the militants also left a Rangers soldier wounded and triggered firing from both sides,” said another official, adding that the guns fell silent only after the militants were killed.