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Up to 14 gunmen are on the run after a terror attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team today in which seven cricketers were hurt and at least seven people died.
Heavily-armed attackers working in pairs opened fire on the team's tour bus and a minibus carrying match officials, as their convoy was on the way to the third day's play in the second Test against Pakistan at the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore.
Six policemen and the minibus driver were shot dead. Despite the injuries to seven Sri Lankan players, the team appears to have had an almost miraculous escape. The shocked players told how the attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the team bus, but missed.
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Opening quote It is as if the terrorist forces of the world have suddenly become aware of what was under their noses all along Closing quote
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Grenades were also rolled underneath the wheels of the bus, but failed to go off, and although the gunmen aimed at the driver, he was unhurt and was able to drive out of the ambush.
The driver was hailed as hero for steering the bus to safety. “I was turning the bus towards the stadium near the main roundabout when I saw a rocket fired at us... it missed us and hit an electric pole, after which all hell broke loose,” said another driver, Mehar Mohammad Khalil.
"The gunmen targeted the wheels of the bus first and then the bus," said the Sri Lankan captain, Mahela Jayawardene, who was among the injured. "We all dived to the floor to take cover."
Ehsan Raza, the fourth umpire, who was travelling in the match officials' minibus, is in a critical condition after being shot in the abdomen. Chris Broad, the British match referee, shielded him with his body to prevent him being shot again.
Experts defused two car bombs and recovered grenades, three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of explosives, a pistol and a detonating cable apparently dumped by the attackers.
"It was terrible. The van driver died in front of us. I am lost for words," said Steve Davis, one of the cricket umpires.
The attack happened at about 8.40am local time (0440GMT). The gunmen converged from four different directions as the bus navigated a roundabout in Bank Alfalah Square, a smart area lined with designer boutiques. Three arrived on rickshaws.
Local television channels showed CCTV footage of the attackers spraying the team bus and police with automatic fire from AK47 assault rifles, working in pairs, using walkie-talkies and wearing backpacks over civilian dress.
Sajid Munir, 30, an immigration officer, told The Times that he was having breakfast with his wife in the Capri restaurant, about 50 metres from the attack site when he heard two or three explosions.
“After that they started firing – too much firing,” he said. “It went on for about 30 minutes. They had machine guns. We were very scared. We thought they would come and shoot the people in the restaurant next.”
He said he saw two of the gunmen driving away on a motorbike.
“The driver was wearing a white shirt with blood down the front,” he said. “We don’t know who these people are, but I don’t think they are human. This is very bad for Pakistan and for cricket.”
Seven members of the Sri Lankan national side were hurt: Jayawardena; Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan batsman and vice-captain, who was treated by the team doctor for shrapnel in his shoulder; bowler Ajantha Mendis who was hit in the back by shrapnel, and bowlers Suranga Lakmal and Chaminda Vaas, who were also treated at the scene.
Two players were hit by bullets and taken to hospital – Thilan Samaraweera, who was struck in the leg, and Tharanga Paranavithana, who was hurt in the chest, but both were said to be stable.
In addition, Paul Farbrace, a British assistant coach, was hit in the arm.
Two of the injured players, the captain and vice-captain, had been given assurances that the team would be safe before they agreed to tour.
None of the 14 or attackers was killed or captured at the scene, said Haji Habibur Rehman, the Lahore police chief.
Experts defused two car bombs and recovered grenades, three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of explosives, a pistol and a detonating cable apparently dumped by the attackers.
The Pakistani authorities immediately blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Islamist militant faction that is widely believed to have struck Mumbai in November.
In the aftermath, two Pakistani military helicopters landed at the cricket ground and evacuated team members and officials, reportedly to the security of an air base, en route for the airport. Discarded weapons, spent cartridges, shattered glass and splashes of blood littered the scene.
The match was called off and the Sri Lankan President sent a plane to fly the stricken team home.
The International Cricket Council condemned the attack, but was condemned in its turn for allegedly allowing the tour to go ahead. David Morgan, the ICC President, denied that his organisation had any role in deciding on whether Pakistan was safe enough for a tour.
"So long as the two countries are in agreement on safety and security, the ICC does not have a role," Mr Morgan said.
The attack will come as a severe blow for Pakistan’s fragile democracy which faces an upsurge in Islamist extremism and a collapsing economy.
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Simon Barnes
Opening quote It is as if the terrorist forces of the world have suddenly become aware of what was under their noses all along Closing quote
It throws doubt on Pakistan's suitability as a tour venue for any international sports team, and on its role as a joint host of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, which is due to be played across South Asia, in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Sri Lanka were contesting the first Test series to take place in Pakistan in 14 months. They had stepped in at short notice as replacements for India, who had cancelled their tour after relations between the neighbouring countries deteriorated in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks in November. Australia also refused to tour Pakistan last year due to security concerns.
Sri Lanka's decision to tour was seen as a gesture of support, by a country which has also suffered from internal terrorist attacks in its long-running war with the Tamil Tigers separatist rebels.
The country reacted with shock and anger at the attacks, and appeared to rule out involvement of the Tigers.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan President, cut short a visit to Nepal, and ordered Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama to fly to Pakistan to oversee the evacuation of the Sri Lankan players - possibly as early as tonight.
"I condemn this cowardly terrorist attack," he said, adding that his team had gone to Pakistan as "ambassadors of goodwill" following India's withdrawal after the Mumbai attacks.
Despite being embroiled in a bitter civil war against the Tigers in the north, Sri Lankan military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said that the group was not thought to be responsible - appearing to direct focus on Islamist militants based in Pakistan.
Gamini Lokuge, Sri Lanka's Sports Minister, insisted that the safety of the players had been given all the necessary consideration before the tour began. "The team was provided with heavy security and I was happy with the preparations the Pakistani officials had taken before we undertook the Test tour," he said.
Hours after the attack a crowd of mostly young Pakistani men milled around the manicured lawn and flowers beds in the centre of the roundabout, some of them filming the scene with their mobile phones, others talking in hushed tones about the attack.
"Government is to blame," said one, Javed Ahmad, 28, who works in the nearby Liberty shopping mall, and also heard the attack. "There should have been more security."
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Anonymous call led police to change route of SL team's bus'
4 Mar 2009, 1313 hrs IST, PTI
LAHORE: A last minute call by an unidentified person led the city police to change the route of the bus taking the Sri Lankan cricket team to
Gaddafi stadium here, a Pakistan media report said on Wednesday.
An unknown caller asked police escorting the Sri Lankan team to use the Gulberg route leading to the stadium instead of travelling along Ferozpur road as had been decided earlier, The News daily quoted interior ministry sources as saying.
Police followed the caller's instructions without ascertaining his identity, the report said. This led to the police falling into a "trap", the sources said.
Six Sri Lankan players and a coach were injured and eight persons, most of them policemen, were killed when a dozen heavily armed terrorists attacked the team's bus at a traffic roundabout near Gaddafi Stadium on Tuesday.
Media reports have said the Sri Lankan team was provided inadequate security even though the Pakistan government had earlier stated that the players would be provided the same level of security as the president.
Three of the terrorists involved in the attack reportedly fled from the scene in an auto-rickshaw. The driver of the vehicle told investigators that they were locals and had spoken in a Punjabi accent, The News reported.
Investigators have also not been able to establish whether "outside forces" were involved in the attack, which resulted in the Sri Lankan team calling off its tour of Pakistan.
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04 Mar 2009 08:45:39 GMT
Source: Reuters
(For main story on the attack, click [nSP392030])
March 4 (Reuters) - Pakistani police hunted on Wednesday for gunmen who mounted a bold attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore as officials tried to figure out who was behind it.
The attack on Tuesday killed seven Pakistanis -- six police and the driver of a bus carrying match officials. Six members of the Sri Lankan team and a British coach were among 16 wounded in the daylight attack as their bus approached the cricket stadium.
The attack rekindled questions about the stability of the nuclear-armed U.S. ally in the fight against Islamist militants.
Mounting insecurity has deepened a sense of crisis around President Asif Ali Zardari's civilian government less than a year after it took power.
Zardari toppled the provincial government in Punjab last week, and his arch rival Nawaz Sharif is ramping up political agitation, aggravating the worrisome law and order situation.
Investigators are yet to identify who was behind that attack, which many analysts believe was meant to further destabilise the government.
Here is a list of possible suspects.
ISLAMIST MILITANTS
Pakistan has been struck by a wave of suicide attacks and bomb blasts by al Qaeda, Taliban and militant groups linked to them.
The attack in Lahore was carried out by around a dozen gunmen, and many observers, including Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, noted similarities with the attack on the Indian city of Mumbai in November.
India and the United States blamed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadi group fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region.
Pakistan has arrested a few LeT members suspected of being behind the Mumbai plot, even though the group, according to analysts, has had ties with Pakistani intelligence in the past.
Many past attacks have been attributed to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Movement of Taliban, Pakistan), a loose umbrella group of factions based in northwest Pakistan on the Afghan border. It is led by Baitullah Mehsud, an al Qaeda cohort. He is suspected of organising the assassination of Zardari's wife and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a Sunni Muslim militant group, is regarded as one of al Qaeda's principal cat's paws in Pakistan. LeJ, made up of cadres largely drawn from Punjab, specialises in targeting minority Shi'ite Muslims, but graduated to high-profile attacks like the suicide truck bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in September last year which killed at least 55 people.
Jaish-e-Mohammad is another Punjab-based militant group that has focused on fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, but there are signs its members have broadened their remit. A Jaish connection was made to one of the assassination attempts on former President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, and there was a Jaish presence at the Red Mosque uprising in Islamabad in 2007. Jaish members have also surfaced in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islami (HUJI), is another Islamist militant group fighting in Kashmir that forged al Qaeda links. HUJI carried the suicide attack that killed 11 Frenchmen and two Pakistanis outside Karachi's Sheraton Hotel. The New Zealand cricket team was staying at the same hotel, and promptly aborted its tour.
BALUCH GROUPS
Several guerrilla groups are waging a low-key insurgency in gas-rich Baluchistan province on the border with Afghanistan. Some have taken responsibility for small attacks in Lahore in the past. A group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of an American working for the United Nations a month ago. The attack on the Sri Lankan team is on a vastly different scale to anything carried out by any Baluch group.
OUTSIDE PAKISTAN -- SRI LANKA'S TAMIL TIGERS
In Sri Lanka, official suspicion will fall on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel group close to military defeat in northern Sri Lanka and which has a long history of carrying out deadly guerrilla attacks. There has been no clear evidence the Tigers have operations or links to Pakistan.
Pakistan has good relations with Sri Lanka and has given training and supplied arms to the Sri Lankan military fighting the Tamil Tiger rebels.
INDIA?
Some Pakistani hawks and nationalists, including a junior cabinet minister, blamed India for the attack in Lahore, speculating it was both payback for Mumbai and an attempt to spoil Pakistan's ties with Sri Lanka.
But Information Minister Sherry Rehman, the principal government spokesperson, denied there was any information of any Indian involvement, saying investigations were still underway. (Writing by Sanjeev Miglani and Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Day of cricket that turned into 30 minutes of terror
Dozen gunmen escape after assault on convoy carrying Sri Lankan team to stadium
* Randeep Ramesh and Haroon Siddique in Lahore
* The Guardian, Wednesday 4 March 2009
* Article history
In the early morning sunshine over Pakistan's cultural capital, Lahore, the Sri Lankan cricket team's coach glided out of one of the city's most luxurious hotels, the Pearl Continental, and edged into the morning traffic. The squad were to take to the field of Lahore's Gaddafi stadium, one of the subcontinent's cauldrons of cricket, in the third day of their Test match against Pakistan.
Winding through, the coach stopped at the junction of Liberty roundabout, a landmark noted for its sculptured pond. Mohammad Khalil, driver of the bus carrying the Sri Lankan team, remembered thinking how quiet the roads were.
But at 8.30am the city's roar was replaced by a deadlier boom: that of a rocket launcher.
"As we approached the Liberty Roundabout, I slowed down. Just then what seemed to be a rocket was fired at my coach, but it missed and I think flew over the top of the vehicle," said Khalil. "Almost immediately afterwards a person ran in front of the bus and threw a grenade in our direction. But it rolled underneath the coach and did not seem to cause that much damage ... I was shocked and stunned."
What had begun as a day of cricket turned into half an hour of terror. The first explosion had in fact missed the cricket convoy by 20ft. From the shade of the trees that line the main boulevard in eastern Lahore a dozen men came armed with rockets and guns in their hands.
Raking bullets into the side of the coach carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, a dozen young men were intent on causing bloody mayhem in the upmarket avenues of the city. The first three gunmen on the scene, captured by television cameras, calmly opened fire with AK-47s on the coach - mowing down Pakistani police.
They then turned their attention to the bus, coolly aiming first at the tyres, then the chassis before shattering the windows. The coach quickly filled with shards of glass and pools of blood.
Injured players hit the floor and there were cries of "Go! Go!" as the coach zigzagged its way through the ambush. "We all dived to the floor to take cover," said Sri Lanka's team captain, Mahela Jayawardene.
What saved the lives of the test cricketers and umpires was the lightning reflexes of Khalil, who kept his foot on the accelerator as bullets ripped into the vehicle and explosions filled the air.
"[The rocket] missed us and hit an electric pole, after which all hell broke loose," he said. "All of us were taken aback ... I did not stop and kept moving."
The driver of a bus following behind, carrying the Australian umpires, was killed. The attack was an audacious, commando-style guerrilla operation. The gunmen wearing backpacks, believed to be full of grenades, split into pairs and moved swiftly to take positions at the roundabout.
The rocket that narrowly missed the oncoming Sri Lankan bus had slammed into a parade of shops - reducing one shopfront to cinders. Malls around the roundabout were punctured by high-calibre bullets that apparently missed their targets.
Muhammad Hashim, a security guard at the Big City shopping centre, told the Guardian he and seven other colleagues ran for cover behind the building at the sound of gunshots. It may well have saved his life. Just a few feet from where he was sat back at his post was a large bullethole on the shopping centre's steps.
The militants continued shooting for another 30 minutes - with little resistance from local police. Seven people, including six police, were killed.
The wounded included seven players, an umpire and an assistant coach. The Sri Lankan team saw its new star batsman, Tharanga Paranavitana, rushed to hospital to have a bullet removed from his chest. The bowler Ajantha Mendis had surgeons pick shrapnel from his torso and vice-captain, Kumar Sangakkara, saw his thigh riddled with shards of metal and glass.
Sangakkara was stoic in the face of the terror. "I don't regret coming to play cricket. That is what we have done all our lives. That is our profession ... I regret what has happened and the situation that we have gone through. All we want is to go back home to our families and get back home and be safe. That is all I can think now," he said.
There were tales of individual heroism. Chris Broad, an English match referee who was supposed to be officiating the Test, dived on top of another umpire to save his life. Broad, father of England fast-bowler Stuart, was one of several officials and umpires travelling in a minibus directly behind the Sri Lankan vehicle.
He leapt upon Ehsan Raza, a local umpire, in an effort to save him from the hail of gunfire. Raza, who was shot in the back, was said to be in a critical condition in hospital. Dominic Cork, the former England cricketer who was in Lahore to commentate on the match, said Broad had told him he had suffered "the most frightening experience of his life".
Inside the vehicle, fear mingled with uncertainty. Sri Lanka's assistant coach, Paul Farbrace, who is British, told the BBC: "People have talked about grenades, rocket launchers and all sorts, but I have to say I wasn't aware of too much because I was lying on the floor of the coach and just hoping to God I wasn't going to be struck."
It could have been much worse. Because the onslaught began before the shops opened, shopping crowds were thin.
Police arrested four men in connection with the assault but the dozen militants simply dropped their weapons and appeared to melt away into the crowds. TV footage of the attack showed gunmen with backpacks firing as they retreated from the scene.
It took police an hour to arrive on the scene and much of the evidence appeared to have been carted away by locals. An abandoned car was found with a stash containing three Kalasknikovs, 12 grenades, a pistol and remote-control bombs was found in a nearby park in Lahore.
The Guardian saw a young boy gleefully pull a cartridge out of the pond in the centre of the roundabout and flash it to TV cameras. On the streets lay bullet casings apparently missed by local law enforcement.
Several damaged vehicles were left behind as well as a lone, unexploded grenade. The bodies of three people lay crumpled on the ground. Associated Press reported police handling what looked like two suicide jackets. Officers also recovered two backpacks, as well as walkie-talkies.
Last night Lahore's police were searching buildings and stopping cars in a massive security sweep, but admitted they had lost track of the gunmen.
Like the tragedy in India's financial capital, Mumbai, yesterday's terror strike was planned to cause maximum mayhem and grab headlines. Not since the Munich Olympics in 1972 have athletes and sports-people been specifically targeted.
In both Mumbai - where the body count topped 170 over three days - and Lahore, the gunmen launched a coordinated strike using multiple assailants who were armed with explosives and assault rifles with little fear of death or capture.
"I want to say it's the same pattern, the same terrorists who attacked Mumbai," Salman Taseer, the governor of central Punjab province, told reporters at the site of the attack. "They are trained criminals. They were not common people. The kind of weaponry they had, the kind of arms they had, the way they attacked ... they were not common citizens, they were obviously trained."
There does not appear to be any immediate connection with Sri Lanka's war with the separatist Tamil Tigers in the island's north-east.
Others speculated that Pakistan's homegrown Taliban, who consider sport unIslamic, were behind the attack.
Wasim Akram, one of Pakistan's best-known fast bowlers, said the future for this cricket-mad nation was all but over. "How do you expect a foreign team to come to Pakistan now?" he said.
Whatever the truth is, the attacks have dealt another blow to a city that has seen foreign tourism disappear, and a country that appears to be teetering on the brink.
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