Pak media laments attack on Sri Lankan cricketers

The Pakistan government failed to provide adequate security for the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and the terrorist attack on the players had proved the country is unsafe even for the "most esteemed guests," leading here newspapers said on Wednesday.

The attack on the Sri Lankan team by a dozen heavily armed terrorists, which killed eight persons and injured over 20, including seven team members, would hit sports hard as no foreign team would now be willing to tour Pakistan "for a very long time," the dailies lamented.

"Mumbai terror visits Lahore," read the headline of a story in the influential Dawn newspaper, whose editorial regretted that the attack had proved that even the "most esteemed guests are no longer safe in this country".

"Assured of security, Sri Lanka chose to play in Pakistan when the cricketing world at large saw us as a pariah state. They chose to play in a country whose very mention invokes images of most gruesome violence imaginable in the minds of most foreigners," the editorial said.

The News, in its editorial titled "Cricket, the requiem," said the only thing that anyone could be sure of was that whoever attacked the cricket team "did not arrive by boat".

Touching on the blame game after the attack, including suggestions of an Indian involvement, it said: "There is no shortage of highly competent, well-armed and trained groups within our own borders capable of such an operation".

While paying tribute to the policemen who saved the Sri Lankans, the Dawn's editorial said "a security lapse did occur, officialdom's denials notwithstanding".

Referring to peace talks with Taliban in the Swat valley, it said that the assault highlights "the folly of negotiating with those bent on destroying with our way of life".

Many in the Sri Lankan team were probably regretting the decision, the newspaper added.

Contending that no Pakistani militant or terrorist organisation bears a grudge against Sri Lanka, the editorial suggested that the attack was carried out by internal or external elements who wish to either destabilise the Pakistan government or to further isolate it internationally.

Noting that Tuesday's attack was carried out by individuals who have "received highly sophisticated combat training," the Dawn said their "approach was not dissimilar to that adopted by the Mumbai gunmen. Perhaps the same organisation is to blame for both tragedies".

The News termed it "a carefully planned and executed attack, carried out by people who knew what they were doing, and who appear to have been well armed".

Pointing out that within minutes a PPP politician told a private TV channel that 'this is clearly work of a foreign hand' the edit said, Pakistani militants "have no need of foreign assistance or money – there are plenty of people here happy to finance them and offer logistical support".

The News said the prospect of Pakistan hosting international sports events in future had vanished.

"Those who carped at Australian refusal to tour here due to security concerns now have their comeuppance. Nobody is going to tour here for a very long time, be they cricketers, hockey players or players of tiddlywinks," it said.

The Daily Times said the Lahore attack was the handiwork of Al Qaeda. "Governor Salman Taseer... stated that the attack
was carried out by the same people who had executed the Mumbai attacks last year traced to LeT JuD".

The newspaper said the Al Qaida-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was probably behind the attack. The LeJ is a sectarian group that was created in 1996 and trained by Al Qaida in its camps in Afghanistan.

"In May 2002, a New Zealand cricket team abandoned its tour of Pakistan after an LeJ suicide bomber attacked them in front of their hotel in Karachi. LeJ was closely aligned with Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the master-planner of the 9/11 attacks in the United States," the newspaper said.