RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Pakistani commandos raided their own army's headquarters Sunday to free 30 people held hostage by Islamist fighters who staged a brazen attack on the compound while wearing military uniforms.

Three captives and four hostage-takers were among those killed in the 22-hour-long drama that ended with the capture of the attackers' ringleader, an army spokesman said.

The audacious assault on the nerve-center of the country's military establishment showed the strength of militants allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban ahead of a planned army offensive on their heartland in South Waziristan along the Afghan border. It also signaled that any push there would be met with more attacks across Pakistan.

The government said the siege had steeled its resolve to go through with the South Waziristan offensive, calling it "inevitable." The United States and Pakistan's other Western allies want the country to take more action against insurgents also blamed for soaring attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Explosions and gunshots rang out just before dawn Sunday as commandos moved into a building in the complex, while a helicopter hovered in the sky. Three ambulances were seen driving out of the heavily fortified base close to the capital, Islamabad.

Two hours after the raid began, two new explosions were heard. The army said it was "mopping up" the remaining insurgents.

Five heavily armed militants took the hostages after they and about four other assailants attacked the main gate of the army headquarters Saturday, killing six soldiers, including a brigadier and a lieutenant colonel. Four of the attackers, who were wearing army uniforms, were killed.

No group claimed responsibility, but authorities said they were sure that the Pakistani Taliban or an allied Islamist militant group were behind the strike. The city is filled with security checkpoints and police roadblocks.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said 20 of the hostages had been kept in a room guarded by a militant wearing a suicide vest who was shot and killed before he managed to detonate his explosives.

He said the 30 who were ultimately freed included soldiers and civilians. Three captives died, along with four militants, and two of the rescuers, he said. The final hostage-taker was caught later Sunday morning, and he was wounded after trying to set off explosives that he was carrying, Abbas said.

Abbas described the captured man as "the leader of all this group."

Overall, at least 19 people died in the standoff — six soldiers, two commandos, eight militant attackers and three captives — and several were wounded.

Saturday's siege followed a car bombing that killed 49 on Friday in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the bombing of a U.N. aid agency earlier in the week that killed five in Islamabad. The string of attacks destroyed any remaining hope that the militants had been left a spent force by the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. missile strike in August.

A week ago, Baitullah Mehsud's successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, told journalists summoned to a briefing in South Waziristan that the Taliban would launch more attacks on military, government and other targets in the country.

The army — which until 2001 had patronized various militant groups for use as proxies in Afghanistan and India — had previously been unwilling to go into Waziristan. Three earlier offensives there have ended in failure, and no one thinks the fight against an estimated 10,000 well-armed fighters there will be any easier this time.

But there are hopes the army may have learned from its successful operation in the northwestern Swat Valley this year.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said a Waziristan offensive was now "inevitable."

"We are going to come heavy on you," he warned the militants.

In its brazenness and sophistication, Saturday's assault resembled attacks in March in the eastern city of Lahore by teams of militants against the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and a police training center, which the insurgents took over for eight hours before security forces retook it.

The attack began shortly before noon when the gunmen attacked the main gate with assault rifles and grenades after bundling out of a white van that reportedly had army license plates.

After a 45-minute gunfight, four of the attackers were killed, said Abbas, who initially told the Geo television news channel that the assault was over and the situation "under full control."

But more than an hour later, gunshots rang out from the headquarters compound, and Abbas then confirmed that other gunmen had eluded security forces and slipped into the compound.

A police intelligence report obtained by The Associated Press on Saturday had warned in July that members of the Taliban along with Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group based in the country's Punjab province, were planning to attack army headquarters after disguising themselves as soldiers. The report was given to the AP by an official in the home affairs ministry in Punjab's home department.

Officials said Saturday that they had raided a house in the capital where the attackers were believed to have stayed. They found military uniforms and bomb-making equipment.

Militants regularly attack army bases across the country and bombed a checkpoint outside the army compound in Rawalpindi two years ago — one of several major bombings to hit the garrison city in recent years. But rarely have the Taliban mounted an armed assault in the city involving multiple fighters.

The Australian Quoted 25 freed:

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PAKISTANI troops have stormed a besieged army headquarters, ending a militant hostage siege that left 19 people dead.

The mission freed 25 hostages after suspected Taliban gunmen stormed the military nerve centre near Islamabad.

Three hostages, two soldiers and four militants were killed in the rescue operation.

Six soldiers and four other militants had already been killed in the siege, which began Saturday in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, the third dramatic militant strike to hit nuclear-armed nation in a week.

Gunfire and explosions were still ringing out near the compound Sunday.

Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said troops went in at about 6am local time, and met with resistance by militants barricaded in the building.

"Twenty-five hostages have been freed. Three hostages and four terrorists were killed in the rescue operation," he told AFP, adding later that two soldiers involved in the rescue also lost their lives.

"Security forces are looking for one more militant who caused an explosion and appears to be in hiding. The operation is continuing and security forces are searching the area inch by inch," he said.

A security official said a brigadier and a lieutenant-colonel were among the dead, while intelligence officials at the scene said the hostages included high-ranking military personnel.

The military released photographs of the four dead militants, all young men with shreds of olive-green army uniforms still visible on the corpses.

Bloody battle begins

The drama unfolded just before midday on Saturday, when up to 10 Taliban gunmen in military uniform and armed with automatic weapons and grenades drove up to the compound and shot their way through one checkpost.

Four militants and six soldiers were killed near a second post but the rest of the rebels fled during the firefight, taking military employees hostage in a building near the army HQ in the city adjoining the capital Islamabad.

In London, visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the attack underlined the extremist threat in Pakistan - on the frontlines of the US war on al-Qaeda -and officials here immediately blamed the Taliban.

"They are the enemies of Islam and Pakistan. All their actions are against the sovereignty of Pakistan," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement is based in the northwest tribal belt. The umbrella group of Islamist militia is blamed for most of the attacks that have killed more than 2200 people in the country in two years.

The siege came after a suicide car bomb on Friday killed 52 civilians at a busy market in the northwest city of Peshawar.

Government ministers blamed that suicide attack on the Taliban, who have vowed to avenge the death of their leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone missile attack in August and are keen to deter an assault on their stronghold.

The TTP also claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Monday on a UN office in Islamabad that killed five aid workers.

Original Story:

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SUSPECTED militants attacked Pakistan's tightly guarded army headquarters today, opening fire and throwing a grenade at a main gate, security officials and media said.

"They wore army uniforms and tried to enter the headquarters area but when they were stopped they opened fire and hurled a hand grenade," a security official told Reuters.

The sprawling headquarters is in the city of Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad.

The suspected militants had driven up to the gate in a white Suzuki van that was carrying explosives, the official said.

The attack ended with all four attackers killed, a military spokesman told Pakistani television.

"All the four terrorists have been killed. The fighting is over now. The situation is under control," Major General Athar Abbas told private TV channel Geo in a live interview.

Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants who have launched numerous attacks over the past couple of years, most aimed at the security forces and government and foreign targets.

Soldiers sealed off roads leading to the headquarters and a helicopter was hovering over the area.