The not good news from Pakistan -
8 Die as Gunmen in Pakistan Attack Cricket Team
By JANE PERLEZ and WAQAR GILLANI
Published: March 3, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A dozen gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan national cricket team and its police escort in a brazen commando-style operation in the city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing six police officers and wounding six cricketers, the Lahore police chief and a Sri Lankan official said.
The attackers ambushed a bus carrying the cricket team, using assault rifles, grenades and anti-tank missiles in an attack that some Pakistani officials compared to the terror assault last November in Mumbai, India.
Two bystanders were also killed and six officers were wounded, according to police.
The attack struck not only a major Pakistani city but also the country’s national sport — a game followed with near-obsessive fascination by many in the region. “Cricketers have never been attacked in Pakistan despite what the situation has been in the country,” Rashid Latif, a former Pakistan cricket captain, told Reuters. “Today is a black day for Pakistan cricket and a black day for Pakistan.”
The police chief in Lahore, Haji Habibur Rehman, said the gunmen opened fire as the motorcade approached Liberty Circle, a major intersection in Lahore not far from Qaddafi Stadium, the best-known cricket facility in Pakistan. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Mr. Rehman said the gunmen were in their early 20s and were bearded. He described them as resembling Pathans, an ethnic group that dominates North West Frontier Province and tribal areas, an apparent suggestion that assailants were Taliban militants from the tribal areas.
The police chief said 12 gunmen attacked the cricketers, and were positioned in vehicles, including motorized rickshaws. According to another police official, Shoaib Janbaz, the gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade but it missed the motorcade and did not explode.Police escorts who were traveling in a van fired back but failed to hit the attackers, witnesses said. The assailants fled in the rickshaws and another vehicle stolen near the scene, Mr. Janbaz said, leaving behind rucksacks filled with pistols, hand grenades and an AK-47 assault rifle, he said. Television footage showed several of the gunmen firing with apparent impunity, spraying bullets from automatic rifles from the traffic circle and a grassy sidewalk area.
The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, described the shooting as a terrorist attack, and said there were similarities with the bloody assaults in Mumbai, India, in November.
“They had heavy weapons,” said Mr. Taseer, as he arrived at the scene. “These were the same methods and the same sort of people as hit Mumbai.”
At least 163 people died in Mumbai when a squad of militants, many of them in their 20s and trained as commandos, attacked targets across the city. Senior members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group active in Kashmir, have been arrested by Pakistan in connection with the attacks.
But another Pakistani official said the attackers came from India. “This was a conspiracy to defame Pakistan internationally,” said Sardar Nabil Ahmed Gabol, the minister of state for shipping, according to Reuters.
The safety of visiting foreign teams has been a major problem for the Pakistani government.
The Australian and other cricket teams have refused to play in Pakistan, saying that the safety of its players was at risk and that Pakistan was unable to provide adequate protection. Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa all boycotted a major tournament in Pakistan last year.
The Sri Lankan team was the first international squad to play in Pakistan for over a year, replacing an Indian team that pulled out of the schedule following the Mumbai attacks.
Cricket was exported to many nations by the British in their imperial days and it has remained as a national sport in some of those countries, drawing immense followings from the Indian sub-continent to Australia and southern Africa.
But the sport has not been immune from security concerns in other countries apart from Pakistan. In the past teams have refused to play in Sri Lanka, while after the Mumbai attack, the English cricket team, which was in India at the time, flew home and returned only when promised improved security. In July 2005 an Australian team was playing in England but stayed on despite a terrorist attack on the London transit system.
The test match in Lahore was the second in a two-match series. Pakistani sports officials said the match had been canceled. Helicopters evacuated the uninjured Sri Lankans from the stadium after the incident and officials said they would be flown home as soon as possible. News reports said that a British coach for the team was also wounded.
A Pakistani cricketer, Omar Gul, who was traveling with his team in a bus some distance behind the Sir Lankan motorcade said that because of the congestion in the Lahore traffic, the Pakistani team did not hear the shooting. The Pakistanis were told to go back to their hotel, where the team heard about the assault, Mr. Gul said.
The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, cut short a trip to Nepal and returned to Colombo after the attack. The foreign minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, told reporters in Katmandu: “It’s a sad day for us. Our national cricket team has been attacked in Pakistan. We condemn and renounce all forms of violence and terrorism.”
India’s Foreign Ministry spokesman seized on the attack to repeat New Delhi’s mantra that Pakistan-based terror groups pose “a grave threat to the entire world.”
“It is in Pakistan’s own interest to take prompt, meaningful and decisive steps to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure once and for all,” the ministry spokesperson said.
There was no indication Tuesday that the attack was related to the Sri Lankan government’s current offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels.
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