Musharraf’s plane draws fire during takeoff

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – President Gen. Pervez Musharraf survived an apparent assassination attempt Friday when shots were fired at his aircraft as it took off from a military base, authorities and witnesses said.

It was not immediately clear whether there was any connection between the shooting incident and the ongoing siege by Pakistani troops of a radical mosque in the capital. At least 19 people are reported to have died in the mosque confrontation, which began Tuesday.

Pakistan has been gripped by a sense of crisis over the past four months as a pro-democracy movement has challenged Musharraf’s attempts to sideline the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who might have posed an obstacle to the president’s efforts to secure another term of leadership virtually unchallenged.

Musharraf’s aircraft came under fire as it took off from the Chakala air base in Rawalpindi, a garrison city adjoining the capital. Police said two anti-aircraft guns and a light machine gun were seized from a house that lay directly beneath the flight path of the base.

The president’s plane landed without incident in Turbat, in Pakistan’s south.

Security officials in Rawalpindi said 25 light machine-gun rounds apparently were fired toward the aircraft. A neighbor, Imram Sheikh, said the house was occupied by a family of renters but said he knew little more about them.