Red alert sounded in Islamabad airports

ISLAMABAD: Five days after the deadly Marriott Hotel bombing, a red alert was on Thursday sounded at the airport here and passenger lounges evacuated following a threat of a possible suicide attack.

Security agencies, which are on high alert, went into a tizzy and evacuated lounges and parking areas minutes after airline officials received a phone call warning of an attack.

Enhanced safety measures were also taken at all airports across Pakistan after an anonymous caller telephoned an official at the airport in the southern port city of Karachi warning that airports in various cities would be targeted at 12.40 pm, Dawn News channel reported.

Civil Aviation Authority officials were quoted as saying that they had been alerted by intelligence agencies that a suicide bomber might target the international airport named after late former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Col Ashraf Faiz, Chief Security Officer, told reporters that the security status at the Islamabad airport was upgraded from "high alert" to "red alert".

He said: "We put the airport on red alert and allowed only passengers and no visitors. The parking (of vehicles) has been stopped."

Airport manager Ayaz Jadoon said flight schedules were not disrupted by the security measures. "The situation is under control. The flights are operating as usual and our effort was that we should not disrupt the flights," said Faiz.

Security agencies scanned the whole area and a bomb disposal squad, fire fighters and ambulances were called in by the airport authorities. However, nothing suspicious was found during the search, Faiz said.

The capital's international airport has already been a scene of an attack in February 2007 when a suicide bomber opened fired near VVIP area of the aiport before blowing himself up with a hand grenade, injuring three people.