Pakistani Taliban blamed for Lahore police academy attack, 23 deaths

Pakistan’s interior minister held the local Taliban responsible for the brazen shooting-grenade attack on morning parade at the police academy in Lahore Monday, March 30,whic left 23 dead. They held 400-500 cadets hostage inside the building for eight hours before being overpowered by a Pakistani paramilitary, police and elite force. Some 90 wounded men were admitted to Lahore’s hospitals. Pakistani sources say three of the estimated 10-25 gunmen were captured and are being questioned and another four were killed or committed suicide.
Some of the attackers were disguised in police uniforms or civilian clothes and described as carrying backpacks with explosives and weapons.
debkafile‘s counter-terror sources report: The police academy attack continued the series launched in Mumbai in Nov. 2008 which demonstrated the Islamist terrorists’ new modus operandi. Using US Seal-type special assault teams they go for their second front – urban areas well back from the primary battlefields where Pakistani and US-led NATO troops are engaging Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
The Lahore attack Monday from for or five directions resembled the commando-style raid in the same city of three weeks ago, when 14 gunmen, most wearing backpacks containing weapons and explosives, attacked the Sri Lanka cricket team, killing 8 Pakistani police officers.
They all escaped and none has been arrested since although the city has been on high terror alert ever since.
In Mumbai, the same class of well-trained, well-equipped commando-style terrorists killed 169 people. This mode of operation is easily transposed to a typical European city.
Our sources point out that a large terrorist team struck the police academy the day after President Asif Ali Zardari pledged to devote all of Pakistan’s resources to fighting terror, and three days after US president Barack Obama unveiled a new US strategy for Afghanistan, vowing to defeat al Qaeda an Taliban. He said America’s annual aid allocation to Pakistan of $1.5 bn was contingent on Islamabad fighting terror.
Al Qaeda, Taliban and other jihadi organizations pressed into the current terrorist campaign in South Asia, such as Lashkar e-Taibe, are moving forward in full cry, steps ahead of the forces dedicated to fighting them.
In Khyber, 11 police officers kidnapped today.