Gunmen fire on Pakistani passenger jet

Gunmen fired on a passenger jet as it landed in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday night, killing a woman on board and injuring three crewmembers. It was the third violent attack recorded at a Pakistani airport this month.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane was carrying 178 passengers travelling from Saudi Arabia when it came under attack, policeman Asghar Khan said at the airport.

The assault killed a Pakistani woman, and bullets narrowly missed the captain, authorities said. At least one bullet struck the plane's engine, according to police.

The woman's daughter was sitting next to her when she was shot in the head, PIA official Mohammad Kifayatullah Khan said.

"When I went inside the plane, I saw the woman lying on the seat and her nine-year-old daughter was crying, 'My mother is dead, my mother is dead,’ " said Khan.

"All the passengers were panicked," he said. "Some of them wanted to get out as soon as possible because they were afraid of fire inside the plane.”

Flights into Peshawar's airport have been fired upon in the past, but none are believed to have been hit until Monday's incident.

On June 8, 10 Taliban gunmen attacked the airport in the southern port city of Karachi, Pakistan's financial heart and home to 18 million people. Thirty-four people were killed in the five-hour gun battle that ensued. Two days later, the Taliban fired on an academy for the security forces located at the airport.

Tuesday's incident in Peshawar will raise further questions about the government's ability to retaliate against the Taliban after it announced on June 15 a military operation to flush insurgents from their mountain strongholds in North Waziristan. Pakistani jets have pounded suspected insurgent hideouts and the Taliban have vowed counter attacks.

Islamabad has promised to tighten security at airports and other potential targets, but critics say decades of neglect of Pakistan's ragged police force has left citizens vulnerable.

On Monday, the government was forced to divert a plane carrying prominent cleric Tahirul Qadri after violence broke out on the ground in Islamabad, with hundreds of supporters armed with sticks battling police, who fired teargas.

The authorities, fearing an escalation of unrest, diverted the plane to the eastern city of Lahore, where Qadri and his supporters refused to leave the plane for hours.

Al Jazeera and Reuters