Not Cricket

Gunmen have attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in the Pakistani city of Lahore. At least six local security officers were killed along with a driver, while seven of the cricketers were injured. Around 10 or 12 individuals actually carried out the attack, and none of them were arrested at the scene.

Some early speculation has put the blame on the Tamil Tigers, currently struggling badly in their struggle for a homeland in Sri Lanka, as the country's government carries out a brutal offensive aimed at wiping them out once and for all. But the attack isn't really their style. The LTTE have traditionally used suicide attacks, and have usually targeted politicians and other officials rather than cricketers. Sri Lanka's greatest ever cricketer, Muttiah Muralitharan, who was on the team bus when it was attacked, is a Tamil himself. It seems extremely unlikely that, even if the Tigers are still capable of carrying out a major terrorist attack, that they would try to kill one of their own.

A better guess is that the attack was the work of Islamist extremists. The similarities to last year's assault on Mumbai in India are striking - the level of planning apparently involved, the gang of about ten gunmen and the apparent use of grenades and rocket launchers. Within India and elsewhere, the Pakistani security services were widely accused of being at the very least complicit in the Mumbai attack, and no doubt similar allegations will now surface about possible Indian involvement in this incident, as retaliation. Whether that's true or not is impossible to judge at this stage, but if such a view becomes widespread, expect the tension between India and Pakistan to rise to levels not seen since the Kashmir crisis of 2002. All-out war between these two nuclear powers seems inconceivable, but don't be surprised if there's a build-up of forces on both sides, and possibly even military incursions into disputed territories, perhaps on the pretext of arresting terrorists. Today's attack could have an impact far greater than the cancellation of a game of cricket.

Terror In Mumbai

Terrorist gunmen have killed more than 100 people and injured a further 300 in a series of co-ordinated attacks on targets in India's financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay to you and me). The attackers opened fire at luxury hotels, hospitals, a well-known cafe and a railway station. The head of Mumbai's anti-terrorist squad is among the dead.

Blame's already being attached to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, and its Indian Mujahideen offshoot. A previously-unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen has said it carried out the attacks, and it seems probable that it's linked to the SIMI and IM. But the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also said he believes the attackers have links outside India, and there are good reasons to suspect he might be right.

The Mumbai shootings show a surprise shift in tactics from the Islamist terrorists. Past attacks in India have usually involved leaving bombs at various targets in the traditional way. This onslaught, featuring a mixture of gunfire, hostage-taking and men clearly willing to die in the act of terrorism, is clearly different. The fact that gunmen targeted places used by westerners, and witness reports that they tried to single out those with American and British passports, indicate something of an Al Qaeda-style dimension to these attacks. There's no sign (yet) Al Qaeda itself had anything directly to do with what happened in Mumbai. But it seems its tactics of suicide and of targeting westerners influenced those who carried out the attacks. Expect the dramatic and audacious nature of this incident to inspire others in the future.