Pakistan Attack on Cricket Team Leaves 5 Police Dead

Terrorists in Lahore killed at least five policemen and injured six members of the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan’s worst attack on foreigners since September’s Marriott hotel bombing.

A group of 12 gunmen carrying rocket launchers and grenades targeted the team bus about 500 yards (457 meters) from Gaddafi stadium in the northeastern Pakistani city, where Sri Lanka’s national team was due to face Pakistan today, Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab province, told reporters. Two players were shot, though none of the cricketers was seriously hurt, Lahore Police Chief Habib-ur-Rahman said.

“The democracy of the country has been undermined, and foreigners are repeatedly attacked to harm country’s image,” Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in the capital, Islamabad. “We suspect a foreign hand behind this incident,” putting the country “in a state of war,” he said. The minister said arrests had been made and that the suspects and their nationalities will be identified after an investigation.

Sri Lanka, which has called off the rest of its cricket tour, had only agreed to play in Pakistan after India pulled out of a series of matches for security reasons following the November attack in the Indian city of Mumbai. In that attack, 10 terrorists killed 164 people in an assault blamed on a banned Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. In September, 53 people died in the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

Mumbai Link Alleged

Taseer said the shooting took place at 9 a.m. at Liberty Market and that the terrorists were from “the same” background as those who carried out the assault on Mumbai, without giving further information.

“It is not an ordinary attack,” Taseer said in Lahore, the Punjabi capital. “These were trained killers who were well armed with heavy weapons.”

Pakistan’s benchmark, the Karachi Stock Exchange 100 index, dropped 1.5 percent to 5,596.49 at the 3:30 p.m. close after earlier sliding as much 3.1 percent. Fifty-eight of the 100 companies in the index sank.

Eight Pakistanis were killed in the onslaught, Pakistan cricket captain Younis Khan said in Lahore. The figure hasn’t been confirmed by police. The attack has badly damaged Pakistan’s cricket, he told journalists.

‘Symbol of Wealth’

“The attackers showed they have no respect for the game,” N. Manoharan, senior fellow at the Center for Land Warfare Studies said today in a telephone interview from New Delhi. “They think it is elitist and a symbol of wealth. The attackers also want to prove things are not normal in Pakistan and the government is not in control.”

Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa said it was a “cowardly” act on a team that was visiting as goodwill ambassadors. Rajapaksa was sending Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama to Pakistan immediately, according to an e-mailed statement from his office in Colombo, capital of the South Asian island nation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Parliament in Islamabad the attack was a “conspiracy” against the nation.

Sri Lanka cricket captain Mahela Jayawardene told Cricinfo Web site the gunmen targeted the wheels of the bus first and then took aim at the vehicle. Terrorists also fired a rocket which missed the target, said Rahman, the Lahore police chief.

“We all dived to the floor to take cover,” Jayawardene was quoted as saying. “Most of the injuries appear to be minor at this stage and caused by debris.”

Players Hurt

Players including Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Samaraweera, Tharanga Paranavithana and Jayawardene were hurt in the shooting, according to the Sri Lankan government Web site. Assistant coach Paul Farbrace was among the injured, the Sri Lanka cricket board said. The board said the eight dead were six Pakistani police officers and two civilians.

Two players were hit by bullets, one in the leg and the other in the chest, Rahman said, without giving their names.

“Two cricketers are being treated in a hospital and their injuries are not serious,” Gamini Lokuge, Sri Lanka’s sports minister, said in a phone interview from the capital, Colombo.

A Pakistani air force helicopter arrived at the cricket stadium in Lahore to evacuate the Sri Lankan cricketers, GEO television reported.

The assailants “want to portray themselves as patriotic, but to target a cricket team means they’ll get no support in this country,” Pakistani politician Imran Khan, a former player who captained Pakistan a record 48 times in Test matches, told the U.K.’s Sky television. “No one expected this.”

Taliban, Economy

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is struggling to contain Taliban insurgents who have seized swaths of northwestern Pakistan, and manage an economic crisis that forced the nation to borrow $7.6 billion from the International Monetary Fund.

Even amid rising violence by Islamic militants, today’s attack is unprecedented, said Shaukat Qadir, a security analyst and retired Pakistani army brigadier general.

“I can’t recall any kind of violence in Pakistan against Sri Lankans,” he said. In the past two decades, the only previous attacks on athletes have been protests by Islamic militants against women athletes running road races or playing soccer or hockey matches in view of male spectators.

“The Sri Lankans have been among the most-liked international teams in Pakistan,” Qadir said.

“It’s the death of cricket in Pakistan,” he said. “This was our first Test after 14 months.” After the Mumbai attack of November, “only Sri Lanka had the courage to come and play here,” Qadir said.

‘Terrible Blow’

The assault damages Pakistan’s international image further and makes life more difficult for ordinary Pakistanis, he said.

“This will be a terrible blow to all Pakistanis,” Qadir said. “Whoever has done this has done a tremendous ill favor to Pakistan and cricket as well as Sri Lanka.”

Sri Lanka was contesting the first Test series to take place in Pakistan since South Africa’s visit in October 2007. Teams including Australia have called off tours to Pakistan on safety grounds, while New Zealand quit a 2002 series after a bomb near the team hotel in Karachi killed 11 people.

The International Cricket Council, which runs the sport globally, last month said its Champions Trophy tournament, which had already been put back a year to September, won’t take place in Pakistan because of security fears.

‘Future Not Good’

“This is the saddest day for all sportsmen,” former Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad told GEO TV. “The future of cricket in Pakistan doesn’t look good.”

Today’s match was the final contest of a series that included three one-day internationals and two five-day Test matches.

Sri Lanka has asked its high commissioner and the Pakistan government for a detailed report, Sports Minister Lokuge said.

“We take these attacks very seriously,” Lokuge said.

The next team scheduled to visit Pakistan is New Zealand, in December, while England is due to travel to the Asian nation in February 2010. Pakistan is scheduled to host matches in the 2011 Cricket World Cup, including a semifinal.