Adil Najam
In this still-developing story, unknown gunmen opened fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team bus near Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore leaving several security officials dead and several Sri Lankan cricketers were rushed to the hospital.
The News is reporting at least 5 security officials dead while The Times reports that as many as 8 Sri Lankan crickets might have been injured. However, latest reports point out that the injuries to the players are minor, although the shock is deep.
According to an earlier report from the Associated Press:
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A dozen masked gunmen armed with rifles and rocket launchers attacked a vehicle carrying members of Sri Lanka’s national cricket team Tuesday, wounding at least two players and killing five police officers, officials said.
The attack in Lahore came at a time of unrest in both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, both of whom are trying to defeat insurgencies. It was unclear who was behind the assault, but it appeared to have been carefully coordinated. City police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said five policemen died in the shooting and that two players were wounded. A Pakistan Cricket Board security official had earlier said eight players were wounded.
“It was a terrorist attack and the terrorists used rocket launchers, hand grenades and other weapons,” Rehman said, adding that the police were hunting down the attackers who managed to flee. “Our police sacrificed their lives to protect the Sri Lankan team.”
He said one wounded player was hit in the leg while the other received a bullet in the chest.
Sri Lankan team manager Brendon Kruppu said the team’s batsman, Kumar Sangakkara, was among those injured near Gaddafi Stadium ahead of a game. Rehman said 12 masked gunmen participated in the attack. Footage from the scene Tuesday showed the team’s white van with its front window shattered as security officials tried to gain control of the scene in an intersection.
Security concerns have plagued Pakistan for years and some foreign sports teams have refused to play here.Most of the violence in Pakistan occurs in its northwest regions bordering Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida militants have established strongholds. Lahore has not been immune from militant violence however, and at least one attack in recent months in the northwest has occurred next to a sports stadium. Sri Lanka appeared on the brink of crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels after more than a quarter century of civil war.
In recent months, government forces have pushed the guerrillas out of much of the de facto state they controlled in the north of the Indian Ocean island nation and trapped them in a small patch of land along the coast. The rebels, who are fighting for an independent state for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, are listed as a terror group by the U.S. and EU and are routinely blamed for suicide bombings and other attacks targeting civilians.
The rebels rarely launch attacks outside Sri Lanka, though their most prominent attack — the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber — took place at an election rally in India in 1991.
As reader Eidee Man wrote in his comment elsewhere on thsi blog (in alerting us to this news): “Everything is officially going to hell.”
Thank you Pradeep for your voice of sanity
If it were not for people like you one woud think all Indians are heartless
Lucikly there are more voices of peaceon both sides than those few childish shouters who spam websites with their hatred
A blow to cricket, no doubt. But most of all my heart goes out to the policemen cut from the prime of their lives.
There is more than enough back and forth political mumbo-jumbo that this will generate. But in all such cases who suffers most? The innocent.
I look back fondly on my childhood days when cricket meant fun and innocence. My best friends are 2 Muslims, a Catholic, and a Hindu. We whacked a rubber ball all around my house in Chennai, imitating the stars (Does this bowling action look like Wasim? If I spread my legs like Srikkanth, can I belt the ball like him? Wow– a dive like Jayasuria!!)
I look back fondly at college days in USA– Ehsan and Shafqat watched India-Pak WC match with me in 1996 (India won, hehe). While Saeed and Aamir thrashed and Venkatesh struck back, those guys told me about their own cricketing childhoods, of breaking windows in Pindi and playing well past dark in Karachi.
We have so much in common, I remember thinking.
We still have so much in common; though increasingly, it is in witnessing the valor of our policemen and the death of our Innocents.
I pray for peace.
@npn_junction
If Pakistan supported the Taliban, then India was supporting the Northern Alliance. 9/11 was the work of Alqaeda, which setup shop in Afghanistan during the 80’s. Don’t see how Pakistan is responsible for 9/11.
The other claims made by Indians of every act of terror being somehow linked to Pakistan or ISI is also rubbish and is found only in the media business/blogs.
Given India’s long support of terrorism in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, India is both a victim and supporter of terrorism.
Since India has failed
“If acts of terrorism in USA, Spain, Iraq, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, 9/11, etc. are examined, they will show no link to Pakistan or the ISI.”
Huh?? Pakistan was the godfather of the Taliban during the 90s as a way to gain influence in Afghanistan, counter Pashtun nationalism, and counterbalance India. It was from the Taliban’s bosom that groups like Al Qaeda were able to execute acts such as 9/11 and the Madrid bombings. Of course this ignores Pakistanis’s direct links to bombings in the UK , India, and Indian embassies in Afghanistan (where the ISI was directly involved according to the Americans).
“Indians can gloat as much as they wish over this event, but the fact is much of the terrorism in India is home-grown and screaming at Pakistan is not going to solve all of your problems either.”
You mean screaming at the person causing/enabling an insurgency in your territory and training jihadis to bomb you won’t solve your problems? Yes, you are correct, more direct action is needed.
As a second generation Pakistani American, it is so disheartening to see the downward spiral Pakistan has taken since its policy makers decided to become the unofficial patrons for a ragtag misguided bunch of miscreants who use a perverted version of islam to justify crimes against humanity. Whether or not this was an “inside” job or an “outside” job, it is time that ordinary Pakistani’s rise up and make their voices heard against an incompentent and corrupt brand of politics and policy choices that has led this country no where. Regardless of who actually committed this crime, the state of Pakistan, is also implicated as an accomplice because it has failed to provide the most basic security to its residents and guests. How does a regime expect people to treat Pakistanis with respect when Pakistan’s own government fails to protect those on its soil. Wake up Pakistan, Wake UP!! This problem is not one that is going to be solved by coming up with closet conspiracies and blame, shame, and justification games. It is time that civil society take a stand in holding up the ideals of a nation instead of a bunch of guys running around with AK-47’s.
It is a shame that the ordinary Pakistani does not realize the talent it is hemorrhaging and the potential of a nation it is wasting by remaining quite and accepting the status quo. Many people, both those in the diaspora and others, want to help the people of Pakistan, but they will not help those who do not help themselves.