Gunmen ambush cricket team in Pakistan

Sri Lankans targeted; 6 police killed

Indian cricket enthusiasts in Calcutta yesterday condemned the attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan. (Bikas Das/Associated Press)

LAHORE, Pakistan -- A deadly gun and grenade attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team yesterday, staged in broad daylight on a busy street here, delivered a powerful blow to Pakistan's national pride and threatened to further undermine the fragile political stability of a nation under increasing pressure from the United States to crack down on terrorism.

The assault left seven people dead, six of them policemen, and half a dozen Sri Lankan players and a coach injured. It could have been much worse, police said. A grenade thrown under the bus that carried the Sri Lankan team reportedly rolled out the other side, a missile missed, and two vehicles found nearby contained unexploded bombs.

But the damage to the Pakistani psyche was profound. It was among the worst armed attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and, perhaps more importantly, it targeted the visiting players of a sport that is followed with zeal across political and national boundaries in South Asia.

"Publicity is oxygen for terrorists, and this is about as high profile as you can get," said Gulu Ezekial, an Indian cricket analyst.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, and US officials and analysts in the region said one possibility was Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group angry at the government for rounding up some of its leaders in India after they were named as suspects in the Mumbai rampage in November that left more than 170 people dead. Other suspects include Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, who have been angry with Pakistan for cooperating with US efforts to go after safe havens in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general, said the attack embarrassed the government in the eyes of its citizens and sullied its reputation abroad. The assailants' aim was "to get international publicity and further weaken the government" he said. "And they've achieved all that."/p>

"Whoever did this was trying to embarrass the Pakistan government and create a sense of chaos," said Lisa A. Curtis, a South Asia specialist at the Heritage Foundation and former CIA Pakistan analyst. "This is very damaging for the Pakistan government because of how much the country loves cricket. They love their cricket stars. They are rock stars. So it is very surprising. It's another indication that the security situation in Pakistan is completely deteriorating."

The country has been weakened of late by political infighting between President Asif Ali Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and large parts of the country's border areas have long been beyond the government's control. In recent weeks, Pakistan effectively ceded power to fundamentalists in the Swat Valley, far closer to the capital city of Islamabad, by allowing them to govern using religious Sharia, or Islamic law.

This location of the attack, in the nation's second-largest city, added to the perception that the government is losing its ability to provide security for its citizens and others from abroad. Last September, suspected Islamic militants used a massive truck bomb to blow up the five-star Marriott hotel in the heart of Islamabad, killing more than 50 people.

"Pakistanis are willing to countenance all sorts of things happening in the tribal areas," said Christine Fair, a political analyst with the Rand Corporation in Washington. "But they are less willing to tolerate this in the heartland."

Video footage of yesterday's violence, believed to involve at least a dozen militants, showed several of them walking calmly and firing at will after ambushing the Sri Lankan team's bus and security escort a few hundred yards from Lahore's 60,000-seat Gaddafi Stadium.

Rizwan Ahmad, 25, an eyewitness, said he saw three people ride up on a motorcycle, dismount, and spray the bus with automatic gunfire from weapons pulled out of their bags. Around the same time, at least two other groups also converged, he said, with a rocket launcher being fired at the bus missing, then hitting a shop.

All of the suspects escaped, said Lahore police chief Haji Habibur Rehman. The government recovered ammunition boxes, a pistol, grenades, automatic weapons, a detonator cable, several pounds of explosives, and a small rocket.

In addition to the six slain police officers, the attackers also killed a driver. A coach and an umpire were injured in addition to the players, none critically.