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Sri Lanka cricket team under attack my armed gunmen
2009-03-03 19:31:48 (GMT) (Caymanmama.com - Pakistan News Top Stories News)
At least a dozen gunmen surrounded the squad’s convoy as it drove through a traffic circle near an eastern Pakistani stadium. Seven cricket players, an umpire and a coach were injured, and six policemen and a driver lost their lives
Baltimore, Maryland (CaymanMama.com) –A Sri Lanka cricket team was ambushed on Tuesday by crazed gunmen armed with rifles, rocket launchers and grenades.
At least a dozen gunmen surrounded the squad’s convoy as it drove through a traffic circle near an eastern Pakistani stadium. Seven cricket players, an umpire and a coach were injured, and six policemen and a driver lost their lives.
According to the Associated Press, “The attackers struck as a convoy carrying the squad and match officials reached a traffic circle 300 yards (meters) from the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gunbattle with police guarding the vehicles. The assault, just ahead of a match, was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.”
Clearly the attackers were seeing international press attention by attacking a team of South Asia’s most popular sport, and they appeared to be protesting against Pakistan’s struggle to aid its 170 million residents with basic security as it fights back against a Islamist militancy.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the confrontation “has humiliated the country” and the head of the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, declared Pakistan was “in a state of war.”
The Associated Press was told that authorities were examining whether the attackers intended to take hostages.
“We are looking at the possibility the gunmen wanted to hijack the bus and take it to a nearby building and create a drama,” Malik said. “The way they came prepared and in large numbers indicates such a plan.”
The attackers ran off into the crowds of the city; none were killed or captured, city police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said. They abandoned machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and plastic explosives, Punjab police chief Khwaja Khalid Farooq said.
CaymanMama.com - Press Release Distribution Service
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