Second attack on Karachi airport over with no casualties

The second attack on Pakistan's Karachi airport in as many days ended on Tuesday without casualties, officials said, but with the escape of the two gunmen involved.

"It was not such a big attack, two people came towards the ASF (Airport Security Force) checkpost and started firing," colonel Tahir Ali, a spokesman for the force told reporters. "Nobody has been killed or injured," he added.

The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the second attack by its men on the airport.

Army spokesman major general Asim Bajwa confirmed the incident was over, but said three to four assailants were involved.

"Three-four terrorists fired near ASF camp, ran away. No breach of fence, no entry. Chase is on, situation under control," he tweeted.

The attack occurred at around 12.30pm (0730 GMT) at a checkpost guarding the entry to an ASF camp 500 metres (yards) from the airport's main premises, and around a kilometre from the passenger terminal.

Ali said the attackers "ran away after shooting and because we are on high alert, under the standard operating procedure we called in (paramilitary) rangers and the army".

He added that ASF personnel had fired in the air but had not exchanged gunfire with the militants.

Pakistani authorities, meanwhile, found seven charred bodies of workers who were trapped in a cold- storage facility that was engulfed in flames during a Taliban attack on the Karachi airport on Sunday, taking the death toll to 37 in that siege.

The search for the bodies began after relatives of victims staged protests on a main road in Karachi on Monday night, demanding authorities to find their relatives.

According to the police, the bodies were found in the cold storage area of airport which was badly burnt due to the attack.

Eleven airport security guards, along with a paramilitary ranger and a policeman, 14 civilian workers and 10 militants were killed in the first attack. The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack.

Their main objective "was to destroy the aircraft on the ground but there was only minor damage to two to three aircraft," interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said late on Monday.

The Taliban had vowed the first attack was just the beginning as they sought to avenge the death of their former chief Hakimullah Mehsud.