Sri Lanka cricket team attack: INDIA BLAMED

Pakistan minister blames India for Sri Lanka team attack
Tue Mar 3, 5:14 am ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A Pakistani minister accused India of being behind the attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in the city of Lahore on Tuesday, saying the attackers had crossed into Pakistan from India.
"The evidence which we have got shows that these terrorists entered from across the border from India," Sardar Nabil Ahmed Gabol, minister of state for shipping, told private Geo television. "This was a conspiracy to defame Pakistan internationally."
"This incident took place in reaction to 26/11," he said referring to the Mumbai attacks in November in which at least 170 people were killed. "It is a declaration of open war on Pakistan by India," said the minister, who is not one of the government's official spokesmen, but belongs to President Asif Ali Zardari's party.

March 4, 2009

Cricket Team Attacked in Pakistan By JANE PERLEZ and WAQAR GILLANIISLAMABAD, 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 at least six cricketers before fleeing in motorized rickshaws, 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. Some Pakistani officials likened the audacity of the assault to the attacks in Mumbai, India, in November.
Two bystanders were also killed and six officers were wounded, according to the police.
The attack struck not only a major Pakistani city but also the country’s most popular 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.”
For a nation seething with conflict between the authorities and militants linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and accused by some of its neighbors of harboring terrorists, the blow to Pakistan’s international prestige and self-image from Tuesday’s attack seemed likely to be profound and enduring — certainly, as far as its sporting ties to the rest of the world were concerned.
“It’s difficult to see international cricket being played in Pakistan for the foreseeable future,” Haroon Lorgat, the head of the International Cricket Council, the sport’s global governing body, told reporters in London.
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 three-wheeled rickshaws with small motors. Another police official, Shoaib Janbaz, said the gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade but it missed the motorcade and did not explode.
The bus carrying the cricketers accelerated through the gunshots, whisking the players into the relative safety of the stadium, The Associated Press reported. 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.
Two Sri Lankan players — Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana — were being treated for bullet wounds in a hospital but were in stable condition, said a spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission. Team captain Mahela Jayawardene and four other players sustained minor injuries, and British assistant coach Paul Farbrace and Ahsan Raza, an umpire, were also injured, The A.P. said. 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 favorite 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.
Pakistan is scheduled to be one of four host countries for the World Cup cricket matches in 2011, along with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Sporting officials on Tuesday did not rule out Pakistan’s participation, but Mr. Lorgat, the International Cricket Council head, told reporters that he would encourage Pakistan to switch its home matches in the near-term to “neutral venues” such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi, news services reported.
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 attack and officials said they would be flown home as soon as possible.
A Pakistani cricketer, Umar Gul, who was traveling with his team in a bus a short 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 militant 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 on Tuesday that the attack was related to the Sri Lankan government’s current offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels.
Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Waqar Gillani reported from Lahore. Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi, Alan Cowell from Paris, and Sharon Otterman from New York.