PNS Zulfiquar Hijack Plot: How Pakistan Navy Officers Planned to Attack US Warships
In 2014, radicalised Pakistan Navy officers attempted to seize PNS Zulfiquar and use the warship to attack US naval vessels in the Arabian Sea.
In 2014, a group of radicalised Pakistan Navy personnel attempted to seize the PNS Zulfiquar and use the frigate to attack US naval vessels in the Arabian Sea. The plot, which was foiled in Karachi, involved serving naval officers and was later linked to Al-Qaeda. Details of the episode have resurfaced amid renewed India-Pakistan naval tensions following the September 15, 2026 collision involving PNS Hunain and an Indian Navy warship. India and Pakistan have issued competing accounts of that recent incident.
The 2014 plot centred on Lieutenant Zeeshan Rafiq and Owais Jakhrani. According to accounts cited in Steve Coll’s book Directorate S, the conspirators intended to take control of PNS Zulfiquar, lock up its crew and use the ship to attack American warships operating in the Arabian Sea.
The frigate was a Chinese-built Type F-22P vessel and was then among the Pakistan Navy’s more modern surface combatants. The conspirators reportedly smuggled weapons aboard and obtained duplicate keys to restricted areas of the ship.
The attempted seizure took place in Karachi on September 6, 2014. Security personnel detected the attackers before they could execute the plan, leading to a gun battle in which Rafiq, Jakhrani and another attacker were killed.
A later account cited by Coll claimed that an Indian intelligence source reported that a nuclear warhead was aboard the vessel at the time. However, Coll noted that the report’s accuracy could not be established.
Five surviving naval personnel involved in the plot were sentenced to death by a Pakistani naval tribunal in 2016. Their sentences were later stayed in 2024, according to the report.
