Islamabad: Six of the 10 militants killed after an attempt to storm an air force base in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar were from Russian republics and Central Asian countries, a provincial minister said Monday.
"Of the five terrorists killed during the attack on Peshawar airport (on Saturday), two were Chechens and three were Pakistanis," Mian Inftikhar Hussain, the Information Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters in Peshawar this evening.
"Of the five militants killed in Pawaka village (near the airport on Sunday), one was Pakistani, one was from Dagestan, one from Kyrgyzstan, one from Chechnya and one from Uzbekistan," he said.
Earlier, Hussain told the provincial assembly that the identity of all the terrorists killed during the attack on the airport and in a gun battle in Pawaka village had been ascertained.
Blood samples of the terrorists had been sent for DNA tests, he said. The attackers were highly trained, he said.
Referring to the tattoos found on the body of the terrorist from Dagestan, Hussain contended that Islamic scholars had said such paintings on the human body were strictly prohibited.
An interim report prepared by police said the attackers had come to the airport on Saturday night in three vehicles. They attempted to breach the airport`s defences at three spots by using an anti-tank mine and two explosives-laden vehicles.
A handwritten note in Urdu found on the terrorist from Dagestan said he was "taking part in these blessed operations because you people do not act upon the divine faith.
You people neither act on its teachings nor accept it. Indeed, you follow the laws of the infidels."
The terrorist, who identified himself in the note as
Musa`b, further wrote that "heretics are liable to be killed till the evil is eliminated", the Dawn newspaper reported.
The motivation and marksmanship of Musa`b and his fellow militants, two of whom blew themselves up, surprised even the most hardened police officers, the report said.
"I could never forget the way Musa`b charged at us, firing and running straight into us," a senior police officer was quoted as saying.
Police officers were also surprised by the number of foreign fighters involved in the raid on the airport.
They said this was the first time so many foreigners were involved in an attack in Peshawar.
PTI
