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| String of terror attacks leave 39 dead in Pak | | |
LAHORE: Teams of gunmen attacked three law enforcement facilities across the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday, paralyzing Pakistan's cultural
capital, while a car bomb devastated a northwest police station, killing a total of 39 people in an escalating wave of terror in this nuclear-armed US ally.
Another bombing in the northwestern city of Peshawar later in the day wounded five people, further rattling the country.
The bloodshed, aimed at scuttling a planned offensive into the militant heartland along the Afghan border, highlights the militants' ability to carry out sophisticated strikes on heavily fortified facilities and exposes the failure of the intelligence agencies to adequately infiltrate the extremist cells.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion fell on the Pakistani Taliban who have claimed other recent strikes. The attacks Thursday also were the latest to underscore the growing threat to Punjab, the province next to India where the Taliban are believed to have made inroads and linked up with local insurgent outfits.
President Asif Ali Zardari said the bloodshed that has engulfed the nation over the past 11 days would not deter the government from its mission to eliminate the violent extremists, according to a statement on the state-run news agency.
``The enemy has started a guerrilla war,'' Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. ``The whole nation should be united against these handful of terrorists, and God willing we will defeat them.''
The wave of violence practically shut down daily life in Lahore. All government offices were ordered shut, the roads were nearly empty, major markets did not open and stores that had been open pulled down their shutters.
The assaults began just after 9 a.m. when a group of gunmen attacked a building housing the Federal Investigation Agency, a law enforcement branch that deals with matters ranging from immigration to terrorism.
``We are under attack,'' said Mohammad Riaz, an FIA employee reached inside the building via phone by The Associated Press during the assault. ``I can see two people hit, but I do not know who they are.''
The attack lasted about 1 1/2 hours and ended with the death of two attackers, four government employees and a bystander, senior government official Sajjad Bhutta said. Senior police official Chaudhry Shafiq said one of the dead wore a jacket bearing explosives.
Soon after, a second band of gunman raided a police training school in Manawan on the outskirts of the city in a brief attack that killed nine police officers and four militants, according to police and hospital officials. One of the gunmen was killed by police at the compound and the other three blew themselves up.
The facility was hit earlier this year in an attack that sparked an eight-hour standoff with the army that left 12 people dead.
A third team of at least eight gunmen scaled the back wall of an elite police commando training center not far from the airport and attacked the facility, Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore said.
A family barricaded itself in a room in a house, while the attackers stood on the roof, shooting at security forces and throwing grenades, said Lt. Gen. Shafqat Ahmad, the top military official in Lahore.
Two attackers were slain in the gunbattle and three blew themselves up, he said. One police nursing assistant and a civilian also died in the attack, he said.
Television footage showed helicopters in the air over one of the police facilities and paramilitary forces with rifles and bulletproof vests taking cover behind trees outside a wall surrounding the compound. Rana Sanaullah, provincial law minister of Punjab province, said police were trying to take some of the attackers alive so they could get information from them about their militant networks.
Officials have warned that Taliban fighters close to the border are increasingly joining forces with Punjabi militants spread out across the country and foreign al-Qaida operatives, dramatically increasing the dangers to Pakistan. Punjab is Pakistan's most populous and powerful province, and the Taliban claimed recently that they were activating cells there and elsewhere in the country for assaults.
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