Four armed men attacked the building of the Pakistani stock exchange in Karachi on Monday. At least two people died. All attackers were also killed, Pakistani police said.
The Pakistani army said that the area is being combed to find out if there were more attackers.
The stock exchange building is located in a strict security zone, where the head offices of many banks are also located. Police said the attackers used firearms and grenades.
The attack started when the gunners threw a grenade at security guards at the fair complex and then fired on a guard post. They were killed in that gunfight. The other two dead were probably security guards.
Authorities say the attackers carried significant amounts of ammunition and grenades. They would also have had other supplies with them, indicating that they intended to occupy the building for a long time.
The stock exchange director Furrukh Khan said that stock trading continued during the attack.
Separatists claim attack
The attack was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army, a group fighting for independence for Balochistan. That conflict between ethnic Balochs and the central Pakistani government has been going on since the 1940s.
Pakistan has been ravaged by violent groups for years, but attacks have declined in recent years following an army offensive against several terror groups in the inhospitable region along the Afghanistan border.
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