Pakistani police detained scores of people yesterday in connection with Tuesday’s attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team in Lahore, but said they had made no progress in tracking down the gunmen that wounded nine people and killed seven others.
Senior police official Haji Habibur Rehman said police raided locations in Lahore and surrounding districts and arrested “some suspects.” He gave no details of their alleged roles, or the precise number detained, but said some were picked up at a Lahore hostel, where bloodstained clothes were also found after Tuesday’s attack.
Islamist militants are widely suspected to be behind the attack, but authorities have not explicitly stated this.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told Sri Lanka’s foreign minister that the “perpetrators of the heinous terrorist assaults on the Sri Lankan cricket team will be unearthed and dealt with iron hands,” according to a statement.
Up to 14 heavily armed gunmen sprayed the Sri Lankan team’s bus with dozens of bullets, plus rocket and grenade fire as it traveled to the Gaddafi Stadium for the continuation of the second test against Pakistan. Six police officers and a driver in the convoy were killed. Seven Sri Lanka players, a Pakistani umpire and a coach from Britain were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.
The assault bore many similarities to last November’s three-day hostage drama in Mumbai that killed 170 people. Working in pairs, the attackers carried walkie-talkies and backpacks stuffed with water, dried fruit and other high-energy food — a sign they anticipated a protracted siege and may have been planning to take the players hostage, an official said.
None of the gunmen was killed, and all apparently escaped after a 15-minute gunbattle with the team’s security detail.
Journalists yesterday were shown weapons found at the scene and at other locations, including 10 AK-47 rifles, two rocket grenade launchers, 32 hand grenades and plastic explosives.
The Punjab provincial government took out advertisements in newspapers yesterday offering a US$125,000 reward. The ad showed two alleged attackers carrying backpacks and guns, taken from TV footage of the event.
Pakistan’s press yesterday blamed Pakistani Islamist militants and al-Qaeda for Tuesday’s attack, saying they had sounded “the requiem of cricket” in the country.
“Mumbai terror visits Lahore,” screamed the main headline in the country’s leading English language newspaper, Dawn, showing side-by-side photographs of gunmen from Tuesday’s attack in Lahore and from Mumbai.
The newspaper criticized the government’s policy of negotiating with militants in an attempt to neutralize extremist Islamist insurgencies along the country’s northwest border with Afghanistan.
The News pointed the finger at India in its main news story, but an editorial said the attackers were most likely “our own home-grown terrorist organizations” as there was no shortage of “highly competent, well armed and trained groups within our own borders capable of such operations.”
Also See: Sri Lankan cricketers return home after bus attack
Also See: PCB says future of tours looking grim
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS