"me no big chief …

the dust has settled,
so has the shock, the anger, the grief – and the emotional voices

let us go back to what did happen
on a weekday morning at 08:40 at a busy roundabout in Lahore Pakistan
12/14 individual – fired automatic weapons – launched grenades
and escaped ON FOOT, unhurt and remains undetected

I read Chris Broads narration of events:

Broad fury at Pakistan security

Source: ESPN Star | Wednesday 4th March 2009

Broad, who expressed fears for his security before the start of the tour, said at a press conference: “I am angry at the Pakistani security forces.” He added: “We were promised high level security and in our hour of need that security vanished and they left us to be sitting ducks.“

Broad continued: “I had an inkling before the Test match leg of the tour that something might happen. “I raised my concerns with the ICC before the tour started and they passed on those concerns to the Pakistan Cricket Board and they assured me through email that all security would be taken care of, presidential-style security. And clearly that didn’t happen.

“When we were in the van we weren’t aware of what was going on outside. But afterwards when you watch the TV pictures you can clearly see the white van we were in, in the middle of a roundabout and not a sign of a policeman anywhere.”

and I also read these reports – duplicated on multiple websites

‘Anonymous call led police to change route of SL team’s bus’

Source: TOI | 4 Mar 2009, 1313 hrs IST, PTI

LAHORE: A last minute call by an unidentified person led the city police to change the route of the bus taking the Sri Lankan cricket team to Gaddafi stadium here, a Pakistan media report said on Wednesday.

An unknown caller asked police escorting the Sri Lankan team to use the Gulberg route leading to the stadium instead of travelling along Ferozpur road as had been decided earlier, The News daily quoted interior ministry sources as saying. Police followed the caller’s instructions without ascertaining his identity, the report said. This led to the police falling into a “trap”, the sources said.

I do not believe any policeman regardless of how dumb or stupid he maybe
would change routes unless he knew the authority of the caller

the best form of protection would have been for the two teams to travel together
the ultimate human shields
so where were the
Pakistani players!

Younis says Pakistan team lucky to escape attack

Source: reuters UK | Tue Mar 3, 2009 2:32pm GMT

LAHORE (Reuters) – Pakistan captain Younis Khan said his team were lucky to escape the attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus Tuesday.

“Thank God we decided to leave our hotel five minutes after the Sri Lankans” Younis told a news conference. “We are a young team and God forbid if both buses had been moving together it could have been catastrophic.”

in the last minute the route was changed
in the last minute the Pakistan team decided to travel separately

just luck?

Pakistan team avoid attack thanks to late change of plan

Source: Guardian UK | Tuesday 3 March 2009 13.09 GMT

Pakistan’s cricketers came within a whisker of being caught up in the terrorist attack in Lahore this morning and owed their near-miss to a last-minute change of plan, according to the team’s coach. Intikhab Alam said that the captain, Younis Khan, decided not to leave for the stadium at the same time as the Sri Lankans as they had previously.

According to Alam, both teams usually departed together at about 8:40am, but that did not happen this morning. “The Sri Lankans decided to leave five minutes early today and our captain had decided we would go separately,” he said.

I find that very hard to believe.

This was a pre-planned and well executed ambush.
The timing had to right,
the target too had to be precise – the Pakistani players could not be touched.

The Pakistan team must have been held back by someone who knew –
so sending the Sri lankans alone into the ambush – they had been the intended target.

What the killers did not account for,
the grenades missing the bus or rolling under unexploded,
the driver of the bus would be alive and be able to drive the bus to safety.

Terrorists turn guns on cricket in Pakistan, a nation at war with itself

Source: Times Online | March 4, 2009

Pakistani officials have already suggested that the attack bore the hall-marks of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group believed responsible for the siege of tourist hotels in Mumbai.

CCTV footage showed the gunmen, like the Mumbai attackers, working in pairs, armed with assault rifles and grenades in backpacks. But they also carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers, a weapon of choice in the Afghan and Pakistan tribal areas. Their escape, melting into the Pakistani city least hospitable to Islamist extremism, will raise fresh and disturbing questions about their links to the security and intelligence services.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of several militant groups created by Pakistan’s powerful Inter Services Intelligence to battle Indian rule in Kashmir.

The attacks on Mumbai and Lahore are classic “fedayin” assaults – suicidal rather suicide – taught in Lashkar’s training camps by ISI officers. What Pakistan experienced in Lahore was the backlash, deepening the sense of crisis confronting the flailing civilian Government.

If I take you back to Chris Broad’s remark that,

“we were in the middle of a roundabout and not a sign of a policeman anywhere.”

does it all seem coincidental?
not to me, it does not.

on a weekday morning at 08:40 at a busy roundabout in Lahore Pakistan
12/14 individual – fired automatic weapons – launched grenades
and escaped ON FOOT, unhurt and remains undetected

there was no presidential-style security
forget military guards or armed convoys
there is no report that the terrorists had been fired back upon,
no bodies,
no DNAs,
any possibility that they could be IDENTIFIED, DEAD OR ALIVE, like in Mumbai – had been excluded

Referee in deadly Pakistan ambush says police fled

Source: Associated Press | By RIZWAN ALI – 04 March 2009

On Wednesday, new video from a surveillance camera broadcast on local TV showed several attackers apparently escaping along a deserted side street on motorcycles while carrying weapons. Three were also shown walking down the middle of the street, apparently in no hurry, indicating they did not believe police were in the area or hunting them down.

“They were not under pressure … nobody was firing at them,” said team captain Mahela Jayawardene said.

Someone in Pakistan Military or the ISI
I clarify NOT the President or elected government –
but the pro-Taliban element in their military knew or authorised this attack.

I truly feel sorry
for the policemen, and their friends and family,
who gave their lives for the Sri Lankan players – for they were the intended collateral loss

cricketterrorismpakistan

Posted by littleindian on . |

Tags: cricket, islamic terrorism, Pakistan, Terrorism
Posted in News, Opinion, Religion, Terrorism