DEBKAfile - Al Qaeda again switches tactics for Lahore bombing

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Al Qaeda again switches tactics for Lahore bombing

DEBKAfile Special Analysis

June 28, 2009

Although Pakistan's Taliban took responsibility, the latest bombing attack in Pakistan's third city, Lahore, Wednesday, May 27, in which 27 people lost their lives and 294 people were badly hurt, was executed on its behalf by al Qaeda's new strike units.

These units, made up mainly of fighters from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have been reinforced lately by an influx of Saudis, Yemenis, Syrians and Libyans, who fought the Americans in Iraq. Their methods have changed four times in the last six months, adapted to their individual missions. DEBKAfile's counter-terror experts note that they are evidently being run by a proactive command, capable of great tactical flexibility.

Al Qaeda is no longer satisfied with simple massacres. The last six months show that each operation is designed to make a separate point.

In its last outrage in Lahore, the focus was on a northern Pakistani nerve center consisting of police emergency response headquarters and the local Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters. Both are situated in a heavily guarded section of its downtown. Similar targets were singled out for a coordinated attack in the capital, Islamabad, demonstrating that al Qaeda's arm was long enough to simultaneously attack two military targets in the same country several hundred kilometers apart. However some members of the latter team were detained Sunday and Monday, so only the Lahore attack went ahead.

In November 2008, the same strike teams drawn mainly from the two al Qaeda offshoots first demonstrated their ability to flit rapidly across great distances by sea and land, making their way stealthily from Karachi, southern Pakistan, to the northwestern Indian town of Mumbai. They were only discovered when they stormed a crowded railway station, a popular restaurant, two luxury hotels and a Jewish-Israel community center.

Local Indian military, security and police units were shown up as helpless to stop their rampage. By the time special operations forces flew in from other parts of India, 161 people were dead and 500 injured.

On March 9, al Qaeda succeeded in removing Pakistan from the international sporting map for years to come. After blocking the main highways to Lahore's main stadium, its strike units ambushed the well-secured convoy carrying Sri Lanka's cricket team to a match. They killed six policemen and a driver and injured several cricketers.

The death toll was lower than the toll of Mumbai, but they made two points: First, the world's sporting teams have given Pakistan a wide berth ever since; and, second, none of the assailants was ever caught.

Then, on March 30, the same al Qaeda strike teams fielding a large group of 15 to 20 terrorists devastated another strategic site in Lahore, the Matawan police training center complex. They left 22 dead and a pile of ruins – again the assailants got clean away without injury, although Pakistani military helicopters went into action for the first time against terrorists.

In al Qaeda's latest attack in Lahore, the third in less than three months, destruction was the object even more than death. Striking a blow for Taliban, the jihadi organization's command sought to lay waste a key Pakistani military-police target in the town center.

A relatively small team of four to six blacked-garbed terrorists, armed with machine guns, small rockets, grenades and a red car packed with hundreds of tons of explosives, tried to smash through to the high-security zone housing important government offices, including the ISI and Chief Minister.

When they failed to break through the barricade, the suicide bomber at the wheel blew the car up damaging at least 30 buildings and dozens of cars. Hundreds of injured people lay in streets strewn with piles of debris and broken glass. It will take years to repair the monumental damage they caused in minutes.

This time, al Qaeda proved that a small team was capable of sowing desolation and death in a high-security center of rule, notable a facility of the ISI, which is the strongest bastion of the Pakistani government.

Although Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik claimed Wednesday that the Lahore attack was in retaliation for the army's gains in the Swat Valley, DEBKAfile's counter-terror experts point out that neither Taliban nor al Qaeda need this pretext for their attacks in Pakistan. Their third strike against Lahore in two months was aimed more at demonstrating that the Islamabad government is fast losing control of the country's main cities and seats of regional administration.

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