Pakistan: "Gunmen" kill 11 in attack on Sri Lanka

Overzealous sports fans? Not likely. "Sri Lanka Cricketers Attacked, Five Police Killed (Update2)," by Khalid Qayum and Farhan Sharif for Bloomberg, March 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

March 3 (Bloomberg) -- At least five policemen were killed and six cricket players injured in a terrorist attack on Sri Lanka’s national team in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore.
A group of 12 gunmen carrying rocket launchers and grenades targeted the team bus about 500 yards from Gaddafi stadium, where Sri Lanka was due to face Pakistan today, Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab, told reporters. Two players were shot, though none of the cricketers was seriously hurt, Lahore Police Chief Habib-ur-Rahman said.

“These were trained killers who were well armed with heavy weapons,” Taseer said in Lahore, the Punjabi capital. “Police commandos have sealed the area and will kill or capture the terrorists.”

Sri Lanka, which has called off the rest of its cricket tour, had only agreed to play in Pakistan after India pulled out of a series for security reasons following the Mumbai attacks in November. The attack is the biggest targeting foreigners since 53 people were killed by a bomb that shattered the Marriott hotel in Islamabad last September....

Epic incompetence, something more, or a bit of both? A Keystone Kops Alert at the very least, for an incident that is rather emblematic of Pakistan's response to jihadists.

"Sri Lankan cricketers: 'We were sitting ducks,' says Chris Broad, accusing Pakistan security services," by Nigel Bunyan for the Telegraph, March 4:

Chris Broad, the umpire and former England batsman, has condemned the Pakistan security forces for leaving him and his colleagues "like sitting ducks" amid the terrorist attack on Sri Lanka's cricketers in Lahore.

Mr Broad, 51, father of the current England Bowler, Stuart Broad, lay terrified in a minibus in the the Pakistani city as it was hit by up to 25 bullets on Wednesday.
The van carrying Broad and other match officials to the Gaddafi Stadium for the third day of the second Test came under fire as gunmen also targeted the Sri Lanka team bus.
Yet despite earlier promises that match officials and players would be treated to “presidential-style security”, scores of police and soldiers appeared to simply melt away as the terrorists launched their attack.

The officials were abandoned by local police when their driver was shot dead in the attack, Broad said.
Mr Broad and his party only realised they had been abandoned when a passer-by took the place of their murdered driver and took them on towards safety at the Gaddafi Stadium.
"At every junction from the hotel to where we were attacked there were police in uniforms with handguns controlling the traffic," he said.

"How did the terrorists come up to the roundabout and start firing and these guys did nothing about it?
"There were plenty of police there but these terrorists came in, did what they wanted to do and then got out of there."

He added: ”When we saw the TV pictures we could quite clearly see our white van and an ambulance in the middle of the roundabout, with the terrorists shooting either past the van or into it.
”There were no security forces to be seen. They had clearly left the scene, leaving us to be sitting ducks.

”I am extremely angry that we were offered high security and in our hour of need that security vanished.”
Shortly before the Test Match phase of the tour he had expressed concerns over security, because he had “an inkling” that “something might happen”.
However, he had been assured by Zakir Khan, Pakistan's director of cricket operations, that “everything would be fine”.

In the aftermath of the attack Imran Khan, the politician and former cricketer, had said he felt “embarrassed” by the level of security afforded the Sri Lankan team.
”He would not have accepted it, and we should not have been exposed to it.”
Mr Broad, who was still so traumatised that he had not slept since the morning of the attack, recalled the irony that as the terrorists roamed at will an “elite” policeman opened a side door in the van and dived on top of him to take shelter..