Gunmen launch second attack on Karachi airport

Gunmen attacked a security post outside a Kirachi airport on Tuesday, authorities said, two days after the Pakistani Taliban led a coordinated assault on the busy transportation hub that left at least 36 people dead. The back-to-back assaults have dampened prospects for peace between armed groups and the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

"The ASF academy is under attack. There is gunfire," a senior official at the Federal Investigation Agency said early Tuesday, referring to the Airport Security Force.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the latest attack. However, a message from what is believed to be the Twitter account of Taliban leader Omar Khorasani said the group was responsible. 

Hours after the first shots were fired, Pakistani media reported that the attackers had fled, there were no casualties and flights at the airport had resumed.

The short exchange of gunfire came hours after Pakistan's air force launched strikes in tribal areas on the Afghan border Tuesday, killing at least 15 rebels, the army said.

"Nine terrorist hideouts were destroyed by early morning military air strikes near the Pakistan-Afghan border," the army's press wing said.

Pakistan’s air force launched the strikes in retaliation for the Taliban’s attack on Jinnah International Airport on Sunday night. That attack saw armed rebels disguised as security forces storm the airport’s main building, setting off explosives and shooting at airport personnel and travelers.

Rescue workers on Tuesday recovered the bodies of seven people trapped inside an airport cargo building, bringing the death toll from Sunday’s attack to 36, including the 10 Taliban attackers.

The Taliban on Monday said the initial assault on the airport was in revenge for the November killing of the group's leader by a U.S. drone strike.

In a telephone call to The Associated Press, the group's spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, warned that "such attacks will continue until there is a permanent ceasefire."

Karachi has been the site of previous attacks, including one in 2011 against a naval base that lasted for 18 hours and killed 10 people.

Pakistan's government has been trying to negotiate a peace deal with armed groups that have been waging war against the government. But the talks have had little success, raising fears that attacks would increase across the country.

Sunday’s assault on Jinnah International Airport appears to have forestalled negotiations and has brought the government a step closer to a broader army operation in the tribal North Waziristan region where the Taliban is based.

The army has periodically bombed suspected hideouts in the region, but has yet to launch a major offensive to flush out rebels.

Al Jazeera and wire services