Militants launched a deadly suicide attack on the police headquarters of Pakistan’s largest city on Friday, with the sound of gunfire and explosions rocking the heart of Karachi for several hours. Two police officers and a civilian were killed and 18 security force members wounded, according to government officials and Ghulam Nabi Memon, the police chief of Sindh province, where Karachi is located. Two suicide bombers were killed and at least one blew himself up after entering the police building, officials said. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, took responsibility for the attack in a message sent to journalists. Murtaza Wahab, a government adviser, confirmed that a joint operation by police and paramilitary forces had cleared the building within three hours of the attack. “I confirm that the operation against the terrorists is over,” said Wahab. Pakistan’s president, Arif Alvi, condemned the attack, and the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, paid tribute to security forces for the successful operation. Pakistan’s interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, said some of the militants threw hand grenades as they tried to force their way into the police headquarters. The tightly guarded Karachi police compound houses dozens of administrative and residential buildings. Hundreds of officers live inside the compound with their families. Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks since November when the Pakistani Taliban ended a months-long ceasefire with the government. Pakistan’s outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban are separate but allied to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The assault on Karachi’s police headquarters comes two weeks after a suicide bomber disguised as a police officer killed 101 people at a mosque in the north-western city of Peshawar. Karachi is Pakistan’s chief commercial city, a sprawling metropolis of more than 20 million people, and its Arabian Sea port is the country’s main trade gateway. Low-level militancy, often targeting security checkpoints in the north and west, has been steadily increasing since the Taliban seized control of neighbouring Afghanistan in August 2021.