Militants fired rockets into the airport of Pakistan’s northwestern city Peshawar late on Saturday, killing four people, wounding dozens more and forcing the airport to close, officials said. Volleys of gunfire erupted around the airport, attached to a Pakistan Air Force base, after the initial attack and the military sealed off the area to launch a search operation, witnesses and civilian officials said.

Pakistani television footage showed a vehicle with a smashed windscreen, another damaged car, bushes on fire and what appeared to be a large breach in a wall. Peshawar is the main gateway to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border, where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked groups have strongholds.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamist militia have claimed responsibility for past attacks on military air bases and routinely carry out attacks in Peshawar. 

“Three rockets were fired. Two landed inside Peshawar airport and another hit a vehicle (outside),” Imran Shahid, a senior police official, told AFP.

It was not clear where in the airport the rockets landed and the extent of the damage. Medical officials said four people were killed and more than 50 wounded. Farhad Khan, a spokesman for Khyber Teaching Hospital near the airport, said four people died and that 50 wounded people had been brought in after the attack.

Doctor Umar Ayub confirmed the death toll. Pervez George, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, confirmed that the airport had been closed and flights cancelled, but said there had been no damage to the airport building or terminals.

“If needed, we will divert incoming flights to Islamabad and (the eastern city of) Lahore,” he told AFP “The airport is closed and the lights have been turned off,” he added.

Pakistani Islamist militants have carried out previous attacks on military air bases in the nuclear-armed country. In August, 11 people were killed when heavily armed militants dressed in fatigues and wearing suicide vests stormed an air force base in the northwestern town of Kamra.

In May 2011, it took 17 hours to quell an attack on an air base in Karachi claimed by the Taliban, piling embarrassment on the armed forces just three weeks after US troops killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Pakistan says more than 35,000 people have been killed as a result of terrorism in the country since the 9/11 attacks on the United States and that its forces have for years been fighting homegrown militants in the northwest.