Sri Lankan cricket team attacked by gunmen in Pakistan

[David Guyatt]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7922918.stm

Pakistan steps up hunt for gunmen
Pakistani security forces have stepped up a manhunt for up to 14 gunmen who attacked Sri Lanka's cricket team in the city of Lahore.

Police say a number of people have been held for questioning and a $125,000 (£89,000) reward has been posted by the government in Punjab.

The Sri Lankan team has now arrived back in Colombo amid emotional scenes.

Gunmen opened fire on the team's convoy on Tuesday, killing six policemen and a driver and injuring eight tour members.

Backpacks

Authorities in Lahore have reproduced in newspapers images of the attackers taken from TV footage and police say a number of people have been detained for questioning.

“ There were just these images of life flashing through my mind ”
Muttiah Muralitharan
However, senior police official Haji Habibur Rehman told the Associated Press that little headway had been made in identifying the men.
Police have shown journalists a large cache of arms they say they recovered from several locations near the site of Tuesday's attack.

There were backpacks stuffed with food and water, suggesting that the gunmen may have been prepared for a long siege, as was the case in last year's attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.

That attack was blamed on the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The Pakistani government has been criticised for the level of security provided for the team and analysts say it will now be under intense pressure to find the gunmen.

INJURED PLAYERS
Thilan Samaraweera
Tharanga Paranavitana
Mahela Jayawardene
Kumar Sangakkara
Ajantha Mendis
Suranga Lakmal
Chaminda Vaas
Assistant coach Paul Farbrace
Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior ministry adviser, said the country was in a "state of war".

He called for patience but vowed to "flush all these terrorists out of the country".

President Asif Ali Zardari, writing in the Wall Street Journal, said the attack showed "once again the evil we are confronting".

An editorial in Pakistan's The News on Wednesday read: "The world has once again seen that Pakistan is an unsafe place, no matter where you are or who you are".

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has flown to Pakistan to discuss the incident.

FBI director Robert Mueller has also arrived in Pakistan on a visit arranged before the attacks.

'Bigger picture'

The Sri Lankan team's return to Colombo saw emotional reunions with anxious family members at the international airport.

"There were just these images of life flashing through my mind; all the while bullets were being sprayed at our bus, people around me were shouting," spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan told the AFP news agency.

MAJOR ATTACKS
Sept 08: 54 die in an attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad
June 08: Six killed in car bomb attack near Danish embassy in Islamabad
Dec 07: Former PM Benazir Bhutto assassinated along with 20 others at a Rawalpindi rally
March 06: Suicide car bombing kills US diplomat in Karachi
June 02: 12 killed in car bomb attack outside US consulate in Karachi
May 02: 11 French engineers and three Pakistanis killed in an attack on Karachi Sheraton hotel
Captain Mahela Jayawardene said the attack should lead to better security.
"This is something for all of us to realise, whoever made all these decisions... that we need to think more than cricket.

"It's about families, livelihoods, kids, wives, parents everybody. We need to look at the bigger picture."

Up to 14 gunmen were involved in the attack on the Liberty Square roundabout in the heart of Lahore.

The masked men opened fire as the Sri Lanka team coach approached the cricket stadium for its Test match against Pakistan.

None of the injured Sri Lanka team members was so seriously hurt that they could not fly back to Colombo but once they arrived, five players and assistant coach Paul Farbrace, who is British, went to a local medical centre for further checks.

The attacks are expected to have massive ramifications for the cricket world.

New Zealand cricket authorities have told the BBC that a proposed tour to Pakistan now seems unlikely.

The ICC is also considering whether Pakistan can co-host the cricket World Cup, due to be held across four South Asian countries in 2011.

Pakistan had invited Sri Lanka to tour only after India's cricket team pulled out of a scheduled tour following the Mumbai attacks.

Those attacks were blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic militants. Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants as well as Kashmiri jihadi groups have been mentioned as possible perpetrators of Tuesday's attack.

[Peter Lemkin]

Like Mumbai, Bhutto assassination and a few other items lately, it seems 'someone' wants Pakistan destabilized - and soon!....what that will mean will be very ugly, IMO.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The following interview is provocative.

Yet again, all is not as it seems....

It appears that somebody stood much of the security down, and then allowed the assassins to escape.

Cui bono?

English referee Broad condemns Pakistan security over terrorist attack

Security forces deserted cricket convoy having promised 'presidential-style' security, says official caught up in attack on Sri Lankan cricketers

Chris Broad, the former England batsman turned match referee who escaped unhurt from the commando-style ambush on the Sri Lankan cricket squad, voiced his anger today at the failures of the Pakistan security forces.

Broad, who arrived back at Manchester Airport today, castigated Pakistan for not providing the "presidential-style security" that had been promised. He accused the security services of fleeing from the attack and leaving the match-officials van as "sitting ducks"

He also refuted reports that he had been a hero and had helped to save the life of the Pakistani umpire Ahsan Raza, who remains in a critical condition in a Lahore hospital. "I wasn't a hero, I was lying on the van floor," he said.

Although still unaware of reports that Pakistan had been forewarned of a potential terrorist attack, Broad's anger was palpable.

"After the incident there was not a sign of a policemen anywhere," he said. "They had clearly gone, left the scene and left us to be sitting ducks. I am extremely angry that we were promised high-level security and in our hour of need that security vanished and we were left open to anything that the terrorists wanted.

"I am extremely fortunate to be here today. Questions need to be asked of Pakistan security. They promised security and it wasn't there when we needed it.

"When we were in the van we weren't aware of what was going on outside. Once the shooting had died down we put our heads above the windows and somebody said: 'There's no one here.'

"The driver was still dead in the driving position. At one stage the door opened and an elite policeman threw himself in the van and lay on top of me. That wasn't particularly brave of him. I started shouting at him to get in the seat and drive us away. He said in his broken English, 'I can't drive'. Eventually another policemen from somewhere opened the front door, unceremoniously dumped the driver on the floor and drove us to the ground.

"It is not just the official security. At every junction there are police with handguns controlling traffic, so how did the terrorists come to the roundabout and these guys do nothing about it?"

Broad, one of the ICC's most experienced match referees, revealed that he had been unnerved about Sri Lanka's tour after the ICC had withdrawn the Champions Trophy from Pakistan, and had asked for reassurances about his safety.

"I had an inkling before this Test match leg of the tour that something might happen, although I certainly didn't think that this was going to happen," he said. "I raised my concerns with the ICC before the tour started. They passed on my concerns to the PCB, to Zakir Khan, the operations manager of the PCB, and he assured me that all security would be taken care of, presidential-style security, and clearly that didn't happen.

"I, like many people, naively thought that there was no way that the terrorists would attack cricket. That has changed and cricket has to do something about it."

Broad not only rejected attempts to depict him as a hero, he suggested that it was Raza, the critically injured fourth umpire, who might have saved his life.

"I wasn't a hero. I was lying on the van floor. There were bullets hitting the van. It could be as much as 20 to 25 bullets. It wasn't real. I saw the Sri Lankan bus stop and we heard these popping sounds. We didn't know what they were. It was Ahsan Raza who told us to get down.

"Having talked to Simon Taufel and Steve Davis, I think we all have the same feeling we were just waiting for a bullet to hit us. Ahsan Raza took a bullet in the stomach, chest, I think somewhere in the spleen and the lung region. I was actually lying behind him in the van, bullets were flying all around us. I only noticed he was injured when this huge pool of blood spilled out of his back, spilled out onto the van floor and out of the partially opened door.

"I couldn't think what to do. I tried to comfort him. I placed my hand on his back but he was clearly critically injured. He is just an umpire, he just wanted to umpire, he loved the game."

Broad dismissed the claim by Ijaz Butt, chairman of the PCB, that international cricket teams would soon return to Pakistan. "I can't see it going on for the foreseeable future. I know that Ijaz Butt, the chairman, has come out and said that their friends will come to Pakistan but I don't think there are any friends in world cricket who will want to go to Pakistan at the moment. Sri Lanka were a friendly country. They wanted to support Pakistan. They won't be going back. This has put a death nail in cricket in Pakistan. I would hate to see cricket in that country die."

His next match-referee assignment is in Johannesburg in a World Cup qualifier in April, but after 30 hours without sleep, he cannot yet confirm that he will be there.

"I find it difficult to sleep because there are so many images going through my mind. It is something I am going to have to come to terms with."

The former England cricketer Dominic Cork has vowed he will not return to Pakistan after being caught up in the terrorist attacks in Lahore. Cork, who was covering the cricket for Pakistan TV, related his "absolute horror and dismay to see the team bus of an international cricket squad covered in bullet holes, to see players picking up their mates covered in blood".

"I don't want to ever see that in my life," Cork said. "I just thought it was me next – I was hiding behind a wall saying to myself, 'Why, why am I here, why am I doing this?'

"I won't go back."

Asked about the future of cricket in Pakistan, Cork said: "You say, don't let terrorists win but they will win if they keep targeting teams."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar...i-security

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Torygraph take, with some different quotes:

Sri Lankan cricketers: 'We were sitting ducks,' says Chris Broad, accusing Pakistan security services

Chris Broad, the umpire and former England batsman, has condemned the Pakistan security forces for leaving him and his colleagues "like sitting ducks" amid the terrorist attack on Sri Lanka's cricketers in Lahore.

Mr Broad, 51, father of the current England Bowler, Stuart Broad, lay terrified in a minibus in the the Pakistani city as it was hit by up to 25 bullets on Wednesday.

The van carrying Broad and other match officials to the Gaddafi Stadium for the third day of the second Test came under fire as gunmen also targeted the Sri Lanka team bus.

Yet despite earlier promises that match officials and players would be treated to “presidential-style security”, scores of police and soldiers appeared to simply melt away as the terrorists launched their attack.

The officials were abandoned by local police when their driver was shot dead in the attack, Broad said.

Mr Broad and his party only realised they had been abandoned when a passer-by took the place of their murdered driver and took them on towards safety at the Gaddafi Stadium.

"At every junction from the hotel to where we were attacked there were police in uniforms with handguns controlling the traffic," he said.

"How did the terrorists come up to the roundabout and start firing and these guys did nothing about it?

"There were plenty of police there but these terrorists came in, did what they wanted to do and then got out of there."

He added: ”When we saw the TV pictures we could quite clearly see our white van and an ambulance in the middle of the roundabout, with the terrorists shooting either past the van or into it.

”There were no security forces to be seen. They had clearly left the scene, leaving us to be sitting ducks.

”I am extremely angry that we were offered high security and in our hour of need that security vanished.”

Shortly before the Test Match phase of the tour he had expressed concerns over security, because he had “an inkling” that “something might happen”.

However, he had been assured by Zakir Khan, Pakistan's director of cricket operations, that “everything would be fine”.

In the aftermath of the attack Imran Khan, the politician and former cricketer, had said he felt “embarrassed” by the level of security afforded the Sri Lankan team.

”He would not have accepted it, and we should not have been exposed to it.”

Mr Broad, who was still so traumatised that he had not slept since the morning of the attack, recalled the irony that as the terrorists roamed at will an “elite” policeman opened a side door in the van and dived on top of him to take shelter.

Broad was hailed a hero as he shielded wounded Pakistani umpire Ahsan Raza on the floor of the van after at least a dozen armed terrorists opened fire ahead of the third day of the Second Test yesterday.

"Once the shooting had died down, Nadeem Ghouri (a Test umpire) put his head up to see and there was no-one there," he recalled.

"At some stage an elite policeman went into the van and ended lying on top of me. It was not a particularly brave thing for him to do.

"I told him he must get us away but he said in broken English that he could not drive.

"Eventually another policeman opened the front door and he took the driver out unceremoniously and dumped him on the floor and drove us to the ground."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket...vices.html