The reports in newspapers of British, American and Australian newspapers are quite revealing in the sense that these dispatches from Lahore speak of police being forewarned of preparations by terrorist groups preparing to target the Sri Lankans either at their hotel or on their way to the Gaddafi Stadium. Police either brushed aside these warnings or discounted them as unrealistic.  Political crisis, following dismissal of Shahbaz Sharif’s government, further prevented any security precautions.

Following are excerpts from the foreign press which gave fairly good insights into the terrorist attack:  

Saeed Shah, writing in ‘The Guardian’, stated, “….tonight attention was focusing on the apparently lax security arrangements, after a document emerged in the Pakistani media showing that local police had warned in writing of the possibility of the Sri Lankan team being targeted. The letter, dated 22 January this year, from a member of the criminal investigation branch to the then provincial police chief, said he had “learnt” that an attack was planned on the Sri Lankan team, either at their hotel or between the hotel and the sports stadium. Police and administration officials met on 23 January to assess the threat, but before action could be taken, the government of Punjab province – of which Lahore is the capital – run by the party of the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was dismissed, following a court ruling.”

Jamie Pandaram, analyzing the intelligence inputs, wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald, “…as soon as it was announced that Sri Lanka would come, the terrorists started drawing up their plans for butchery. It was a horrible way for the team to discover what others dreaded to be true.”  Referring to deferred Australia cricket tour to Pakistan in March last year, he stated that Australia was told this would happen. “Before Cricket Australia announced they would abandon their tour of Pakistan last year, they received frightening information that Ricky Ponting and his teammates would be specifically targeted by terrorists. Had Australia toured there last year, it could easily have been their bus caught in the middle of bullets, grenades and missiles.”  He said that despite Pakistani assurances of airtight security, it was quite lax. “The reality was alarming, as security inspections revealed lax standards and worrying mistakes. Women wearing burqas were not being checked as they entered grounds. Unattended bags were spotted around stadiums.”

Simon Tisdall, in his dispatch to The Guardian, quoted experts on identity of the terrorists who targeted the Sri Lankans and their motives. “Like other Pakistani commentators, author and journalist Ahmed Rashid pinned blame for the attack against the Sri Lankan team squarely on Islamist militants with whom Pakistan is fighting a spreading battle along its north-western flank…. There was also broad consensus about the purpose of the attack, which was widely compared, in terms of tactics and aims, to that carried out by the Punjabi group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, in Mumbai last November.” Rashid said, “I think this is a deliberate attempt to undermine the government at the time when there is a huge political crisis in the country. They are trying to create a vacuum of power in which eventually they can take over.”

Catherine Philp, in The Times, referred to Pakistani officials suggesting 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.  The gunmen are undoubtedly the product of the kind of training camps that the United States-led coalition has sought to eradicate in
Afghanistan, but which have merely relocated to Pakistan’s tribal border areas.”

The Times editorial said that the attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team could not have sent a more chilling message that militant Islam is as ruthless, dangerous and adroit as ever. It also demonstrated how Pakistan each day is inching nearer to becoming a failed state. Its politicians run scared from extremists, its security services are compromised by terrorist organisations and its streets are now unsafe for visitors who want to do nothing more than come and play a game of cricket.

Greg Baum, in his conclusion in the Sydney Morning Herald, said, “.Cricketers – all sportspeople – must be allowed to make their own decisions, without prejudice for their futures. They are ambassadors, not soldiers, constrained to behave with dignity and observe cultural niceties, but not to compromise their lives or beliefs. In Australia, this is well understood; Stuart MacGill once refused to tour Zimbabwe on grounds of conscience and was respected for it.”

In this hour of tragedy, while one should understand the embarrassment and helplessness of the Pakistani civilian government, the latter must not hesitate to invite western investigative agencies with powers to investigate deep into the conspiracies behind these terrorist activities.  The inability of the Pakistani security forces to do so has been proved beyond doubt as many international experts have documented evidence of the culpability of the Army and its agencies for their involvement and abetment of Islamist violence.  

The PPP government of Asif Ali Zardari has itself invited the UN to investigate into the killing of his wife and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.  It is no surprise that all major powers, the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan, have already appointed special envoys to deal with the situation in the AfPak region (the new phrase coined by President Obama for Afghanistan and Pakistan).  

All these countries must take pro-active policies to clean up the Taliban and other Jihadi organizations which have a free walk-over through out Pakistan despite them being the banned organizations.  Their aid must be conditional for incremental improvements in the situation.