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Supporters of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) chant slogans during a protest against the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani investigators were following “important leads” to identify who was behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Wednesday.

The ambush in broad daylight, and the apparent ease with which around a dozen gunmen escaped after a firefight with police of almost 30 minutes, sent shudders through a world fearful of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s inability to contain rising militancy.  “We also have some important leads that would eventually unearth people responsible for this terrible act,” Qureshi told a news conference with his Sri Lankan counterpart in Islamabad.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said this was the first attack on its nationals outside the country and he did not rule out possibility that the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) movement was involved.

Desperate for leads, police rounded up scores of people without establishing any link, according to officials, although one mid-level officer in the probe told Reuters a cellphone had been found that led to the arrest of at least one real suspect.

Seven Pakistanis, including six police and the driver of a bus carrying match officials, were killed in Tuesday’s attack on the Sri Lankan team as it was being driven to the Gadaffi Stadium for the third day of a match against Pakistan.

Six Sri Lankan players were wounded along with two team officials, including a British assistant coach. They flew back to Colombo along with the rest of the tour party on Tuesday night.

“SITTING DUCKS”

ICC match referee Chris Broad told a news conference in London he and other match officials had been left like “sitting ducks” by a lack of security.

The Punjab government has offered a reward of around $125,000 for information on the attackers, who were armed with AK 47s, hand grenades and rocket propelled grenades.

Television footage showed gunmen wearing track suits and trainers and shalwar kameez, traditional long shirt and baggy pants. Some appeared to be barely 20 years old.

They appeared to leave the scene of the attack quite calmly, walking and on motor cycles.

Pakistan has reeled under a wave of bomb and gun attacks in recent years, mostly carried out by Islamist militants linked to the Taliban or al Qaeda, but arch nationalists would relish a link being found between rival India and the Lahore attack.

Pakistan’s pro-West President Asif Ali Zardari wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the “terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore shows once again the evil we are confronting.”

The targeting of a visiting cricket team from a friendly country stunned Pakistanis whose love of the sport only comes second to religion in terms of forging a spirit of unity.

The reverberations were felt across the cricketing world and beyond, with U.S. President Barack Obama expressing deep concern.

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller held talks with Pakistani officials in Islamabad on Wednesday to follow up on the probe into the Mumbai attacks, having already met with Indian officials in New Delhi.

The United States wants Pakistan focused on fighting terrorism, but there are fears Zardari’s civilian government could be engulfed by crises less than a year after taking power.

Aside from militancy radiating across the northwest from the borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan desperately needs billions of dollars of aid to supplement a bailout by the International Monetary Fund last November.

Elections to parliament’s upper house, the Senate, were held on Wednesday under the shadow of a political crisis that sparked street agitation in the past week and sent share prices tumbling.

But the Karachi index bounced nearly 4 percent by Wednesday afternoon thanks to support buying from state-run institutions.

POSSIBLE SUSPECTS

There is a long list of possible suspects for the attack in Lahore. The Tamil Tigers are close to defeat in northern Sri Lanka and have a history of deadly guerrilla attacks.

“LTTE definitely, we believe have outside links and international connections to other terrorist organizations but these are matters that we cannot discuss in the open,” Bogollagama said.

Speculation has otherwise focused largely on two Pakistani jihadi groups — Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Laskhar-Jhangvi (LeJ), as well as the Pakistani Taliban.

LeJ, a Sunni Muslim group, is regarded as a cat’s paw for al Qaeda in Pakistan and has been linked to several high-profile strikes including the suicide truck bomb attack that killed 55 people at Islamabad’s Marriott hotel last September.

Pakistan has arrested a few LeT members after India and the United States said the group was responsible for the slaughter of about 170 people by gunmen in the Indian city of Mumbai last November. The group is also said to have some links to al Qaeda.

Formed to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, LeT has had good relations with Pakistani intelligence agencies in the past, and there is pressure on Pakistan to cut any remaining jihadi ties.

Several observers noted some similarities between the Lahore and Mumbai attacks.

Hospital staff carry Sri Lankan cricket player Tharanga Paranavitana at a local hospital in Lahore March 3, 2009 after a shooting incident.

LAHORE, Pakistan – At least a dozen men ambushed Sri Lanka’s cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers Tuesday as they drove to the stadium ahead of a match in Pakistan, killing six policemen and a driver.

The attackers struck as a convoy carrying the squad and match officials reached a traffic circle 300 yards from the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gunbattle with police guarding the vehicles.  Seven players, an umpire and a coach were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.  The assault was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Tuesday’s attackers melted away into the city, and none was killed or captured, city police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said. Authorities did not speculate on the identities of the attackers or their motives, but the chief suspects will be Islamist militants, some with links to al-Qaida, who have staged high-profile attacks on civilian targets before.

The bus driver, Mohammad Khalil, accelerated as bullets ripped into the vehicle and explosions rocked the air, steering the team to the safety of the stadium. The players — some of them wounded — ducked down and shouted “Go! Go!” as he drove through the ambush.

‘In a state of war’
The attack reinforced perceptions that nuclear-armed Pakistan is unable to control a raging militancy that is increasingly threatening to destabilize the nation of 170 million.

The head of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, said the country was “in a state of war.”

“We will flush out all these terrorists from this country,” he vowed late Tuesday.

Some of the gunmen who attacked Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore were caught on camera

Sri Lanka had agreed to this tour — allowing Pakistan to host its first test matches in 14 months — only after India and Australia backed out of scheduled trips over security concerns. The assault will end hopes of international cricket teams — or any sports teams — playing in the country for months, if not years.

Tuesday’s attack came three months after the Mumbai terror strikes that killed 164 people. Those raids were allegedly carried out by Pakistan militants, and the assault in Lahore resembled them in many respects. Both were coordinated, used multiple gunmen, apparently in teams of two, who were armed with explosives and assault rifles and apparently had little fear of death or capture.

Authorities will also consider possible links to Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger separatist rebels who are being badly hit in a military offensive at home, though Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said it was unlikely the group was involved.  Authorities canceled the test match against Pakistan’s national team, and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered his foreign minister to immediately travel to Pakistan to help assist in the team’s evacuation.

A special flight is expected to bring the players home in the early hours of Wednesday, according to a Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry official.

‘Highly trained and highly armed’
TV footage of the attack showed at least two pairs of gunmen with backpacks firing from a stretch of grass and taking cover behind a small monument before moving on. It was taken from the offices of a Pakistani news channel overlooking the site of the ambush.

“These people were highly trained and highly armed. The way they were holding their guns, the way they were taking aim and shooting at the police, it shows they were not ordinary people,” said Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province. “This is the same style as the terrorists who attacked Mumbai.”

Investigators found a plethora of weapons — including rocket-propelled grenades, sub-machine guns and plastic bombs — as they searched the scene, Punjab police chief Khwaja Khalid Farooq said.

The attackers also had walkie-talks, mineral water, dried fruit and backpacks, he said. “They came with proper planning,” he said.

An Associated Press reporter saw police handling what looked like two suicide jackets.

“It is a terrible incident, and I am lost for words,” said Steve Davis, an Australian who was to have umpired the match.

Resemble Pashtuns?
Lahore police chief Rehman said “between 12 and 14 men” took part in the assault and they resembled Pashtuns, the ethnic group that hails from close to the Afghan border, the stronghold of al-Qaida and the Taliban. He said officers were hunting them down.

Two Sri Lankan players — Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana — were being treated for bullet wounds in a hospital but were stable, said Chamara Ranavira, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission.

Umpire Ahsan Raza was hit in his abdomen, medical Superintendent of the Services Hospital, Mohammad Javed, said.

Team captain Mahela Jayawardene and four other players had minor injuries, the Sri Lankan Cricket Board said. Ranavira said British assistant coach Paul Farbrace also sustained minor injuries.

Haider Ashraf, another police officer, said six policemen and a driver of a Pakistan Cricket Board vehicle were killed.

Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said little could be done to stop such an attack, saying “there is never enough security to counter a well organized and determined terrorist group.”  The Dubai-based International Cricket Council condemned the attack. But ICC President David Morgan told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the organization had no role in deciding on whether Pakistan was safe enough for a tour since Sri Lanka and Pakistan agreed to the match.

One militant group likely to fall under particular suspicion is Lashkar-e-Taiba, the network blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks in November, in which 10 gunmen staged a three-day siege targeting luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites.

In the past, India and Pakistan have blamed each other for attacks on their territories. Any allegations like that will trigger fresh tensions between the countries, which are already dangerously high.