36 die as Taliban hits Lahore, blasts rock Pakistan cities

Kimi

Lahore/Islamabad, Oct 15 (IANS) Pakistan Thursday vowed revenge after the Taliban laid siege to Lahore city with audacious and simultaneous attacks on three police establishments that killed 25 people, including 10 of the attackers. Suicide bombers claimed 11 more lives elsewhere in the country.

An unknown number of armed men - and probably a few women - dressed in military fatigues stormed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) building in a thickly populated area of Lahore, stunning the authorities.

Around the same time, two other groups of terrorists raided the sprawling police training school at Manawan, about 12 km from the Indian border, and the Elite Force training centre, another huge complex.

The attack on the FIA, Pakistan's federal law enforcement agency, triggered widespread panic because it is situated close to a school where scores of children were in attendance.

Thursday was one of the worst days for Pakistani authorities -- even by the country's own standard of unending bloodletting. In no time, the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which Saturday attacked the military headquarters in Rawalpindi, claimed responsibility for the Lahore mayhem.

The group has vowed to hurt Pakistan to protest US drone attacks on militants near the Afghanistan border and to punish security forces for preparing to crack down on the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziritstan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, now in China, reacted angrily.

He said that when the terrorists had taken on the Pakistani military and police and openly claimed responsibility, then 'certainly we will react at a time when (we have) some strategy'.

The violence spree broke out in Lahore, one of Pakistan's most vibrant cities, shortly after a suicide bomber stormed a police station and killed 10 people in Kohat town in the northwest.

And just as calm returned to Lahore, an explosion at a school in Peshawar, also in the northwest, killed an eight-year-old child.

In what were well-synchronised strikes, the terrorists barged into the three Lahore targets Thursday firing from their weapons, sparking pitched gun battles. They lobbed grenades at the startled security personnel.

As loud blasts and gunshots were heard, military helicopters hovered above to keep a watch on the terror drama.

After over four hours the military neutralized the terrorists. One was captured.

'The situation is under control and there are no hostages,' Major General Shafqaat Ahmad said at the Elite Force training centre, where the security forces took the maximum time to subdue the terrorists.

In contrast, the terrorists in the FIA building and the police training school were killed quickly.

Ahmad said five terrorists were killed at the Elite Force complex. Police said seven people were killed and three injured in the attack on the FIA building. The dead included two terrorists.

The head of the Rescue 1122 emergency service, Rizwan Naseer, said the total death toll in all three incidents had reached to 25. Among them were 10 terrorists.

Lahore Police Commissioner Khusro Pervez said it was a 'multi-directional attack'.

This was the second attack on the police training school this year after a March 30 assault that left several people dead.

Pakistan has been rocked by a string of terror attacks in the last 10 days that have claimed more than 100 lives.

The Lahore attacks come a day after it was announced that Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had ordered that an advisory on tightening security be issued following the assault on the military headquarters.
Indo Asian News Service

36 die as Taliban hits Lahore, blasts rock Pakistan cities - Yahoo! India News

Safin

Another attack and this one was just before pakistani army is contemplating a major offensive in South Waziristan. Imo there will be more if they do go ahead as the people whom they have supported earlier(well its open secret they did

) are the ones they are hurting now.

The point is what can they do? The terrorists seem to be able to strike in Lahore at will these days.

If so called "surge" plans of Obama(sponsored by McCain) go through, Pakistan is seeing some troubled times ahead. The terrorists won't just take blows silently.

patch01

^^ Pakistan should be using the Americans for whatever they can get from them, but don't fall into the trap where Pakistani troops are utilised as cannon fodder by American commanders out to prosecute their so called war on terror/war on drugs........... Fight the war against the Taliban, (they deserve nothing better, because they've perverted the Word of the Lord), but do it intelligently.... Play to your strengths and fight to win.............. All the Pakistani Defence Force needs is to have some confidence in its abilities and the use of American logistics to move forces around the battle area....

No, the Taliban won't lie down quietly, so make them lie down for good............

If necessary, Pakistan should approach Australia, the UK and other European nations engaged in Afghanistan, for some quiet assistance, say with satellite imagery or the use of Commonwealth SAS Forces, whenever a particularly juicy target becomes opportune... Done with some plausible deniability, (ie: so that the Americans don't find out), I'm sure there'd be some consideration given.

Safin

^^ you are assuming here that pakistan army has now indeed decided to fight the taliban and other extremists. That is indeed something no one can be sure of. The ISI and the army has supported them in the past as a strategic policy in the whole region and especially in Afghanistan and its hard to imagine each and every officer now has had a change of heart. They should have had but i don't think so.

Fact remains that the kind of attacks se saw in Lahore and on army HQ required inside knowledge of where the security was weak and from where to attack.

Safin

From today's NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/wo...ef=global-home

Pakistan — A wave of attacks against top security installations over the last several days demonstrated that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and militant groups once nurtured by the government are tightening an alliance aimed at bringing down the Pakistani state, government officials and analysts said.

The assaults in Lahore, coming after a 20-hour siege at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi last weekend, showed the deepening reach of the militant network, as well as its rising sophistication and inside knowledge of the security forces, officials and analysts said.

The umbrella group for the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Lahore, the independent television news channel Geo reported on its Web site.

But the style of the attacks also revealed the closer ties between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and what are known as jihadi groups, which operate out of southern Punjab, the country’s largest province, analysts said. The cooperation has made the militant threat to Pakistan more potent and insidious than ever, they said.

The government has tolerated the Punjabi groups, including Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, for years, and many Pakistanis consider them allies in just causes, including fighting India, the United States and Shiite Muslims. But they have become entwined with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and have increasingly turned on the state.

As i said, Pakistan now has to decide whether it wants to continue on its ill-conceived and shortsighted strategy of harbouring extremists which in the end come back to haunt Pakistan only or to go after them.

They don't have much of a choice now. I don't think these guys will stop at anything now that they know the army is after them. I hope good sense prevails all around.
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Agnel

It is quite natural for the terrorist groups to fight back when they are hit.

Now how can they rationalize this behavior against their own brothers and sisters?

Infact nothing that they do can be rationalized. I just hope peace and order prevails in this world

Yamaraj

The so-called terrorists are not passive and laid-back 'law-abiding' citizens and therefore not easily manipulated by their government. Political correctness aside, I, too, would hit back with maximum force if my loved ones were attacked and killed like pests and little insignificant vermin. Terrorism is the use of terror against people and there aren't many examples of governments acting any different.

This whole staged 'war on terror' is just as meaningless and stupid as the acts of violence against innocent people from the other side.

FarhanDanish

all parkistan hate taliban

C.Ronaldo

^Do you know that all those being killed in Waziristan or Swat are all taliban?

All the drone attacks are just accurate and always talibans are killed?

Safin

While the drone attacks do have a less than satisfactory accuracy, the fact remains that they penetrate and hit areas impossible to be hit by any other means.
If the commoners want to save themselves, they really need to turn against the Taliban. As such i can't see how they get their support. Who follows their ideology? If its the young guys in Madrassas, Pakistan needs to act urgently to tackle that problem.