By Syed Saleem Shahzad & M H Ahssan
Pakistan might recently have signed peace deals with miltants in its tribal areas, including with vehment anti-establishment Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, but miltants on Tuesday staged a brazen attack in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province and the second-largest city in the country.
The attack by 12 heavily armed gunmen on a convoy escorted by police transporting Sri Lankan cricketers to a match against Pakistan has set off alarm bells in the capital Islamabad that miltants are now taking their battle into major urban centers.
At least five people died and six of the cricketers were injured in a 25-minute battle in which militants wearing backpacks and carrying AK-47s, rockets and grenades fought police. The assailants then all fled. The Sri Lankan cricketers have called off their tour and are heading home immediately.
The attack bore some similarity to that of 10 well-armed gunmen, also with backpacks, who rampaged through Mumbai in India last November, killing 140 people. They were later found to have connections to the banned Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
"This was a planned terrorist attack. They had heavy weapons," Salman Taseer, who heads the provincial government as governor of Punjab, was reported as saying. "These were the same methods and the same sort of people as hit Mumbai."
Numerous Pakistani analysts have been quick to point a finger at India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for staging what they say is a tit-for-tat attack on Tuesday, although there is been no official announcement in this connection.
A press attache at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Islamabad thought it highly unlikely that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who a waging a bloody separatist war in Sri Lanka, had anything to do with Tuesday's events.
Rather, judging by what was shown on Pakistani television, the attack is the hallmark of those that were waged by militants (many of them Punjabi) against Indian security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir up until a few years ago. They were trained by the Indian cell of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
In 2005-06, these militants joined forces with the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan resistance after Pakistan closed down their training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a move that changed the dynamics of the war theater in the region.
Beside the Mumbai attack, Tuesday's assault was similar to the storming of the Serena Hotel in the Afghan capital of Kabul in January 2008 and the unsuccessful July 2008 attack on Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. In all of these incidents, the attackers abandoned their weapons and quickly melted into a thickly populated area of the city where, apparently, they were whisked away by waiting colleagues.
Retired Lieutenant General Hamid Nawaz, a former interim minister the Interior and a close aide of former president General Pervez Musharraf, commented to Asia Times Online, "This proves that striking peace deals [with militants] will not serve any purpose and there is a need to handle them with iron hands. I blame the government for negligence.
"Providing a single elite police commondo bus was not enough. They should have been provided VIP [very important people] security like the state provides for governors and chief ministers. Traffic should have been blocked on their route," Nawaz said.
Former Pakistani cricketer Zaheer Abbas said, "I am not a politician to comment on who was behind it, but it has damaged Pakistani cricket very badly. I don't understand why anybody would target Sri Lankans because they don't have any role in the region. There might be some forces who want to damage the cause of Pakistan and Pakistani cricket."
Possible attackers
Pakistani analysts, including retired General Hamid Gul, who is a former head of the ISI, blame India's RAW.
However, there is no precedence for RAW having the capability to carry out such attacks in Pakistan. Its operations in Pakistan have been of two kinds, according to the records of Pakistani security agencies, documented in files and books narrated by their retired officials:
- Small bomb blasts in urban centers.
- The use of Indophile political parties such as the Awami League in 1970, the Pashtun sub-nationalist Awami National Party, the Baloch separatist group the Baloch Libration Army and the Muttehida Quami Movement.
However, these parties were always used in a limited political context. For creating a law-and-order situation in the country, RAW has always used bomb blasts and other small-level sabotage activities. It has never had the capacity, like the ISI had in India, to use armed groups to carry out guerrilla activities in Pakistan.
More pertinent is to view Tuesday's attack in the context of the peace deals in the Swat Valley and the tribal areas which have stopped the fighting between ethnic Pashtun-dominated militants and the Pakistani army.
Prior to the signing of the deals, the matter of the release of militants who did not belong to the Swat area was raised, that is, non-Pashtun militants. These included Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was apprehended while trying to flee the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad in July 2007.
However, after deciding on the level of compensation packages for the families of militants killed or injured by the security forces and other matters related to Swat and the tribal areas, the matter of non-Pashtun militants was deferred and the peace agreements were signed.
In effect, non-Pashtun militants have been ignored and the attack in Lahore could be a bloody message to the government that the "Punjabi militants" have the capacity to cripple urban centers at any time and place of their choosing.
Indian Scenario
Six policemen were killed and at least six Sri Lankan cricketers injured on Tuesday when heavily armed gunmen attacked the team cavalcade when it was on its way to the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore. The cricketers were evacuated by an army helicopter as Sri Lanka cancelled its Pakistan tour.
Salman Taseer, governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, said the attack in the heart of lahore was the handiwork of the same terrorists who struck in Mumbai in November last year.
"It was a planned terrorist act on the pattern of the attack on Mumbai. I believe the same terrorists are involved in both the incidents," Taseer told reporters.
Pakistani authorities have announced the formation of a special investigation team to probe the attack.
The team bus, which came under attack at about 8.45 a.m. at the Liberty Market crossing close to the stadium where the squad was going for the third day's play in the second Test from their hotel, was riddled with bullets.
Pakistan Cricket Board sources said the van carrying the match umpires also came under attack, leaving the umpires' liaison officer Abdul Sami injured. One of the umpires Ahsan Raza was reported to be critically injured.
The driver of the Sri Lankan team's bus claimed that a grenade had been thrown under the bus, but did not explode.
Lahore police chief Habibur Rehman said 12 terrorists armed with rocket launchers and hand grenades carried out the attack and the exchange of fire lasted for about 25 minutes.
"The attackers had come by rickshaws," he told reporters, confirming that five security personnel escorting the team had been killed - including two commandos.
All the attackers made good their escape, leaving behind a huge quantity of weapons and ammunition. A car suspected to have been used by the attackers was impounded.
The Sri Lankan High Commission said in a statement: "Members of the Sri Lankan Cricket Team have received minor injuries including Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Suranga Lakmal and Thilina Thushara and Assistant Coach Paul Farbrace. Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana have been admitted to the Lahore Hospital."
Later, Samaraweera and Paranavitana were brought back to the stadium and flown to the airport on a Pakistan Air Force helicopter for their return journey to Colombo.
Most of the other players had already been flown to Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore to be flown back home.
Pakistan Cricket Board's Director Operation Zakir Khan and one of the doctors working with the board are accompanying the returning players.
Pakistan Television (PTV) televised live the departure of the Sri Lanka cricketers from the stadium. They were seen off by Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt.
In Colombo, there was concern and worry.
Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary P. Kohona said he had spoken to the Pakistani authorities and had been assured of all help.
"It is appalling that anybody should have targeted a sporting team in such a brutal manner. The attitude of targeting sportsmen must change," he said.
Father of the outgoing team skipper Mahela Jayawardene said his son had called his wife from Lahore to say that he too had suffered minor injuries in his leg during the attack that had shocked the nation.
The Sri Lankan team was in Pakistan to play in place of India that had pulled out of the series after the Nov 26-29 Mumbai carnage that was blamed on Pakistani terrorists.
Sri Lankan Embassy's Third Secretary Chamara Ranaweera expressed concern about the future of cricket in Pakistan after the attack.
He said it was courageous of Sri Lanka to agree to play in Pakistan in the present circumstances, but the incident carries serious implications for cricket in Pakistan.
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