PESHAWAR, Pakistan—Armed militants launched an attack on military barracks close to the U.S. consulate in Peshawar early Saturday, local government officials said, as violence continued despite massive flooding that has destabilized the nation over the past month.  Security forces guarded on a road near the U.S consulate in Peshawar after a shootout inside a government building there Saturday.  The attack did not appear to be on the consulate, which was targeted in April, said a U.S. spokesman at the embassy in Islamabad. No U.S. citizens or locals working for the consulate were injured in the attack on Saturday, he said.  Armed gunmen appeared to attack army barracks near the consulate. A firefight between militants and security forces continued in to the late morning, eyewitnesses said. The army and police sealed off the area.  Military spokesman Major Gen. Athar Abbas told local television that armed terrorists entered a government building and took two security guards hostage. "The security forces have encircled the building where the terrorists are holed up and [and] the security forces are trying to ensure the safe release of the hostaged guards," he said.  There were no immediate reports of casualties on either side.  "The terrorists don't spare the nation at a time when the people are mourning the destruction caused by devastating floods," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provincial government. "I appeal to the world to support us. We are facing them boldly."  Meanwhile, flooding continued to drive hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in southernmost Sindh province on Saturday.  The town of Thatta was almost deserted as a breach in a levee early Saturday forced most of its 300,000 residents to flee, officials said.  More than a million people have left their homes in Sindh since Wednesday as the floodwaters continued to rise. Many are making their way to Karachi, the provincial capital, threatening to overwhelm refugee camps there.  More than 1,500 people have died in floods, which started a month ago and have forced seven million people from their homes in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and provinces further south. The Pakistan Taliban has warned it will attack foreign aid agencies that have ramped up operation to help flood victims, but so far there have been no reports of attacks on them by militants.  The Pakistan army, aided by unmanned U.S. drone strikes, has been fighting a war against the Pakistan Taliban for more than two years. The Taliban have hit government, military and civilian targets across the country, killing thousands of people.  On Monday, three separate bomb incidents killed at least 36 people in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the semiautonomous tribal regions that border Afghanistan.
A heavy exchange of fire erupted at security forces' offices in northwest Pakistan near the U.S. consulate, but U.S. personnel were unaffected and the motive behind the attack was not immediately clear.