Attack on Sri Lankan Cricket Team

[Arse]

Masked gunman have opened fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team's bus in Pakistan, killing eight people and wounding six players and the team's Australian coach, officials say.

The coach, Trevor Bayliss, sustained minor injuries in the attack, a team official said.

Lahore police chief Habib-ur Rehman said 12 gunmen attacked the convoy near Lahore's Gaddafi stadium with rockets, hand grenades and automatic weapons and were involved in a 25-minute shoot-out with the security forces.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/759738 ... tan-attack

There's video footage of the attacks on that link which are quite graphic. Two of the Pakistani police officers are shown cowering with their heads covered throughout the attack!

WTF?

[Animavore]

Yeah I saw that on RTE earlier. A bit mad if you ask me. Is there a reason for it?

[Arse]

Last I heard it bears all the hallmarks of being the same group who attacked Mumbai not so long ago. Nobody's quite sure yet who it was, but it would make sense if it was the same Islamist group who want to overthrow the Pakistani government, because attacking a foreign cricket team will damage the government in all sorts of ways - tourism, chances of hosting the Cricket World Cup, international reputation, relations with one of their neighbours - all fucked.

[Animavore]

Yeah apparently the cricket authority, what ever they're called, have halted further games with Pakistan and their future hopes of hosting the 2011 World Cup are in doubt.

[Arse]

Yep. Plus, Pakistani friends tell me that the biggest shock for them is that it took place in Lahore, which is one of the most liberal, cosmopolitan and secularised cities in the country. The feeling is that if they can do it there, civil war is an increasingly likely prospect.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Last I heard was that there were literally dozens of different factions that 'can't be ruled out' - including Kashmiri separatists, Tamil Tigers (although this is extremely unlikely), al quaeda, any of a whole slew of other islamist nutjob groups.

I mean. Cricket! Is nothing sacred?

[JimC]

Appalling lack of competence shown by the Pakistan security authorities, and/or fundamentalist inspired corruption...

Simply, don't play cricket in Pakistan again.

[al-rawandi]

So many things to respond to.

My guess is that it was an Islamist group. The Tigers of Tamil Eelam have usually attacked people and places with some relevance to the Sinhalese power structure. This would seem a departure if it were them. Also, Hindu Tamils would find it difficult to travel to Pakistan, especially since the ISI is pretty powerful there.

The major problem in Pakistan is that the ISI has long worked with the Taliban to keep Afghanistan defined on religious terms, which would pre-empt Pashtun nationalism spreading from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Pakistan remains worried about hostilities with India (over Kashmir, and now Mumbai) and thus need a porous border region with sympathetic radicals located on both the Pakistan and Afghan side to provide strategic depth against an Indian invasion, or incursion.

The notional consequence here is that the ISI has created a beast it can't and won't control. The government reached a critical junction only weeks ago. The Taliban/Fundamentalists in the the Northwest Frontier Provinces (a hot bed of Islamist activity since the days of the British empire) were gaining more and more control. The government forces outnumbered Taliban forces 4-1. The government had the choice of crushing this movement and asserting its final dominance in all matters of domestic administration, or of ceding control. They, unfortunately, chose the latter. Now with Taliban self governance and Shariah in Swat and the NWFP other groups may attempt to undermine government control in other areas. The Baluchis may pull a similar stunt, along ethnic lines, in the Baluchistan region (however the Iranians would protest this as they have a large Baluchi population in S. Iran).

We can only expect more of this behavior as long as the government of Pakistan chooses appeasement as the way forward. Appeasement of thugs NEVER works. History tells us as much.

And this remains shocking as in Pakistan, even the religious groups had a respect for cricket, apparently it is no longer sacred. Shared past times are no longer a source of unity in Pakistan, and this is a bad omen.

[Arse]

Just heard Germaine Greer's rant about this on Question Time. God, she's an awful tit, to think she was once a major feminist icon. "We mustn't stop sending sportsmen and women to Pakistan, it will only make them more paranoid and play into the hands of the terrorists."

I wouldn't mind if she was stupid, but she does have a brain, so I would really like to slap her.