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Attack In Lahore Raises A Question: How Safe Are The Nuclear Instillations In Pakistan?

March 5, 2009

Attacks In Lahore And Mumbai Raise A Question: How Safe Are The Nuclear Instillations In Pakistan And India? Adam Lovejoy writes: The terrorist attack in the Pakistani city of Lahore two days ago on the Sri Lankan cricket team that was travelling to a test game was carried out under the very noses of the security services that have managed to miss large groups of well armed men entering respective cities and going on killing sprees. Just like in happened in Mumbai last year.

In the latest tragic incident that took place not far from the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore 14 attackers armed with automatic rifles, grenade launchers and each carrying explosives and grenades with them in backpacks arrived in a car and several motorised rickshaws at exactly the moment when the motorcade consisting of the coach with the Sri Lankan cricket team, the van with some of the supporting staff and the mini-bus with the police were approaching the stadium. The terrorists open fire on the motorcade and the coach driver managed to speed off, thus saving the cricketers from getting killed. But the van and the mini-bus stopped and as a result six Pakistani policemen and the driver of the van were killed. It has now transpired that other members of the security team that had been assigned to protect the Sri Lankan cricketers either fled from the scene or hid in the nearby bushes.

As a result all of the attackers had managed to get away. A huge manhunt was launched, according to the Pakistani authorities, but no one has been caught. CCTV footage released later showed the attackers leaving the scene of the crime in an orderly calm fashion, brandishing guns.The Islamist extremist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba has been named as the most likely suspect behind the attack. It has been also pointed out that the attackers were highly trained individuals and similarities with the Mumbai atrocity were drawn.

But doubts about the ability of the Pakistani security services to cope with outbreaks of terrorism are growing. The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team did not happen in some remote mountainous region. It was also quite strange that the heavily armed terrorists had managed to arrive on the scene without being spotted by anyone. Grenade launchers are not the sort of weapons that you can hide in a shopping bag. And the perfect timing of the attack – the terrorists arrived spot on to catch the coach – seems to be puzzling, just as it is not clear why no resistance was put up by the policemen accompanying the team.By the looks of things a scandal is in the making.

Just like in Mumbai the security forces in Lahore were caught completely off guard. And yet we are supposed to believe that Pakistan, like India, has some of the best trained anti-terrorists units in the world.

Some people might argue that the choice of the target was completely random. It is what is known in the anti-terrorist business as a ‘soft target’. But still this was not a lone suicide bomber throwing himself in the path of the coach. This was a large group of well armed men, making their way through a city that is supposed to be monitored by CCTV cameras and patrolled by police and special forces.

It just does not make any sense.

The Mumbai attack, obviously, overshadows events in Lahore. The former was a giant lapse of security, with terrorists running amok in the city and killing people at random. It is still a mystery how the Indian government, which was telling the world that it paid special attention to security, could have survived the crisis and did not fall. But the most worrying thing of all is that if security forces in countries like India and Pakistan are allowing terrorists to stage spectacular attacks in large cities how can we expect them to provide sufficient protection for their nuclear instillations from terrorists the?

Now that is a really terrifying thought.

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