In a commando-style operation, a dozen gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in the heart of Lahore, Pakistan's cultural and political hub, at 8:45 Tuesday morning. The attackers fired rockets, grenades and multiple rounds of ammunition at the team's bus and police escorting it, killing eight people and injuring six. To some eyewitnesses, it was last November's Mumbai attacks replayed on Pakistani soil. (
See pictures of the terror attack in Pakistan.)
Amid thick morning traffic in Lahore's Liberty Square, the gunmen ambushed the bus as it approached the Gaddaffi cricket stadium. "I heard the attack and spun around," recalls Abdul Ghani Butt, 30, a foreign currency dealer who was on his way to work at the time. "It was just like the Mumbai attacks. They were young, about 25-30 years of age, coming from different directions. Some were clean-shaven, others bearded. They were wearing tracksuits and carried backpacks. One of the men then put down his rocket launcher, and pulled out a rifle.
He changed the magazine so quickly that it could only have been done by a professional. The others were walking around so calmly, across the grass in the roundabout." (
See pictures of the Mumbai attack.)
The gunmen killed five policemen, two bystanders and a bus driver. Six members of the Sri Lankan cricket team were injured. Two of the cricketers were shot, while others sustained minor injuries from flying debris. The reserve umpire for the ongoing test match, Ahsan Raza, a Pakistani, is in critical condition. "It was horrifying," Nadeem Ghouri, the Pakistani umpire told Reuters. "There were bullets flying around us and we didn't know what was happening. When the firing started we all went down on the floor of the coach. Our driver was killed instantly from a shot from the front."
On the edge of the roundabout lies one of the half a dozen police vehicles that were escorting the bus between the team's hotel and the stadium. The windscreen of the blue Punjab Elite Police pickup bears six large bullet holes. The roof is badly damaged. On the driver's seat, amid broken shards of glass, is a blood-stained cap belonging to one of the dead police commandos. Blood is also smeared across the steering wheel, and forms small pools in the back seat. Bullet casings lie nearby. According to eyewitnesses and police accounts, the police commandos and the attackers were locked in a gun battle for 15 minutes. "One of the police commandos came out into the open and began firing at them," says Mohammed Waqas, 25, a travel agent who was also on his way to work. "I don't think he survived. The other commandos used their cars for protection. But the gunmen escaped."
Salmaan Taseer, the
Governor of Punjab who took control of the province last week, says that a search operation is underway. "It was a similar type of attack to Mumbai," he told TIME. "They were well armed and well trained. They had rocket launchers, grenades and Kalashnikovs. They were also well trained in the use of explosives. The police have discovered a vehicle that was used by the gunmen that was packed with explosives. The engine was running with the key in. If anyone turned off the car, it would have blown up. We are not afraid, the people of Lahore are not afraid. We'll get the bastards who did this."
Police say they have arrested suspects in the Model Town area of Lahore, but none of those detained are believed to be gunmen. The Interior Ministry has announced that an investigation is underway.
The sophistication of the operation raises questions not only about the identity of its authors, but about the failure to afford the visiting cricket team sufficient protection. Foreign teams, including Australia, England India have all refused to play in Pakistan in recent years because of security fears. But Pakistani authorities have insisted that security is fine. It will be harder to do that now. "The happiness and joy that cricket brought to our country has been destroyed by the violence we saw today," says Ali Shujaat, owner of the Lahore Cricket Academy. "We have got infrastructure worth millions of dollars and we now see no future for professional cricket in Pakistan. Who will play us now?" "This was a major lapse of security," cricket legend turned politician Imran Khan told TIME. "Having guaranteed the Sri Lankan team security, they failed to provide them even with the type of security given to a government minister. This could have been a mammoth tragedy. If the grenades hit them inside the bus, it could have blown up the whole team. And astonishingly, how were they allowed to get away?"
In the wave of terror attacks that has scarred Pakistan over the last two years, the perpetrators have normally used improvised explosive devices, bomb-laden vehicles and individual suicide bombers.
A full frontal assault is new. The resemblance it bears to the Mumbai attacks, with young men with backpacks openly brandishing their weapons, suggests to some analysts the possible involvement of Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistan-based militant group based near Lahore. (See pictures of Mumbai picking up the pieces.)
Others are pointing to the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Kashmiri separatist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, who have bases in southern Punjab. "My own assessment is that it is a Pakistani militant group," says retired general turned analyst, Talat Masood. "Whether it is Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed, I can't say." Sri Lankan officials say that the Tamil Tigers, who are behind an insurgency in their country, are not believed to be responsible. (Read TIME's brief history of the Tamil Tigers.)
A local television channel captured glimpses of the attackers mounting the attack. Prominent in the footage are a pair of men, moving around together, crouching on their knees as they open fire. One appears to be a clean-shaven man young enough to be a teenager and wearing a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. His companion is a taller man who appears to be in his 20s, wearing a brown shalwar kameez (traditional Pakistani dress) and a beard. One senior police officer in Lahore was quoted by the local media as speculating that the men were Pashtun in appearance, members of the ethnic group dominant in Pakistan's militancy-wracked northwest and parts of Afghanistan.
The brazen nature of the attack and its high-profile targets will sink Pakistan's reputation further, analysts say, driving away foreign investment and delivering a blow to the country's much-celebrated national sport. The Pakistani rupee and the main stock exchange both have dipped at the news. "It's a very serious incident that escalates the present state of affairs," says Masood, the retired general. "It gives an idea of how the frontiers of terrorism are expanding in Pakistan. It also shows how Pakistan is vulnerable. It is no longer capable of hosting international events."
The attack also comes at a sensitive time for Pakistan, and Punjab in particular. The country's largest and wealthiest province was plunged into turmoil last week after its most popular politician, opposition leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was barred from holding elected office by the Supreme Court in a controversial ruling. The decision sparked angry protests across the province and opened up a major rift with the government. Sharif has held political rallies across Punjab, urging supporters to join this month's lawyer-led "long march" to Islamabad to demand the reinstatement of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Over the weekend, the government staged a vast counter-demonstration in the port city of Karachi. Political analysts fear that as the fresh phase of political uncertainty consumes politicians' energies, the divide is proving a distraction from the unremitting advance of Islamist militancy.
In a sign of the growing threat, militants have crossed the Indus River from the northwest in recent weeks to mount attacks in the Punjabi towns of Mianwali and Bhakkar. Lahore itself was long considered removed from the threat, not suffering its first suicide bombing until January 2008. Since then, it has seen a spate of major bombings, including attacks on the Naval College and the headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency.
— With Reporting By Vivian Salama / Lahore
they will simply use the weapons which are not common in Indian army. planning is good but no matter how well the plan is there is always a chance to go wrong so for precaution they wont use same weapons.
