Attack on Lankan team resembles Mumbai strike: Pak authorities

Lahore, March 3 (PTI) The daring attack carried out by
"trained terrorists" against the Sri Lankan cricket team in
Lahore today bore the hallmarks of the tactics used in the
Mumbai terror strike, according to Pakistani authorities.

"The attack resembles the Mumbai attacks," the chief of
police in Punjab province Khaled Farooq told reporters here,
as the Lahore attack brought back memories of 26/11 though of
not that scale and magnitude. Eight people, most of them
policemen, were killed in today's attack while the Mumbai
strike claimed 183 lives.

Lahore police chief Habib-ur Rehman and Punjab Governor
Salman Taseer also shared Farooq's assessment saying the
incident was similar to Mumbai attacks on November 26 last.

"I want to say it's the same pattern, the same
terrorists who attacked Mumbai," Taseer said. Pakistan-based
elements including Lashkar-e-Toiba(LeT) have been blamed for
the 26/11.

"That was also a commando action and this is also a
commando operation," Farooq said when asked how the attack was
similar to Mumbai.

"They were trained terrorists and they attacked in a
planned manner.... The attackers looked like Pashtuns," said
Farooq.

Khusro Pervez, commissioner of Lahore, said, "It
appears that the attackers were fully trained and they used
lethal and sophisticated weapons," said.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman said the terrorists
were "prepared, armed and systematic."

Habib-ur-Rehman said 12 masked gunmen were involved in
the attack and they were armed with rockets, hand grenades,
kalashnikovs. TV footages also showed backpacks, boxes
containing dry fruits and medicines that were left behind by
the terrorists before they fled.

Reports said the gunmen had tried to snatch a car in a
market nar to the scene of the attack as they fled from
Liberty Chowk. During the Mumbai attack, two gunmen took a
police car before Abdul Kasab was captured alive and the lone
terrorist to be arrested by police.

Like in Mumbai, the gunmen were belived to be youg and in
the twenties.

TV channels aired footage of at least two of the gunmen,
one of them wearing shalwar kameez and other jeans and a
jacket. Both were armed with assault rifles and carrying
backpacks.

The nature of the Tuesday's attack, coordinated, using
multiple gunmen armed with explosives, is reminiscent of the
Mumbai strikes that raised tensions between Pakistan and India
forcing cancellation of the tour of Indian cricket team to
that country. The Sri Lankan cricket team filled in for the
Indians who may have possibly escaped the terror attack. PTI
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