Lahore mosque attacks kill 80

ISLAMABAD // Death squads of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) unleashed automatic gunfire and grenades on two mosques of the Ahmedi sect in the central city of Lahore yesterday, killing around 80 worshippers and injuring more than 100. The co-ordinated attacks on the mosques in the Garhi Shahu and Model Town areas, at opposite ends of Lahore, were timed to coincide with Friday prayers at 1.30pm to maximise casualties.

The attackers struck amid dusty winds and rain that marked the end of the hottest May in Pakistan's 62-year history. Witnesses and officials said the militants stormed the two Ahmedi mosques, where an estimated 2,500 male and female worshippers were gathered, lobbing hand grenades into the crowds and spraying them with rounds from AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles. The Punjab provincial branch of the TTP issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks.

As news of the TTP claim came through, cable news networks broadcast live images of attackers at both venues securing their positions in military style, climbing on to the roofs and to the top of the mosques' minarets, from where they unleashed a hail of gunfire and lobbed Russian-made grenades at police. The larger group of attackers, estimated at eight to 10 in number, occupied the mosque in Garhi Shahu, a congested district of terraced multi-storey houses and commercial buildings in Lahore's northern quarter, built by the 16th century Mughal emperor, Akbar.

Four policemen, including a superintendent, Haider Ashraf, were wounded when they drove into a hail of bullets fired from the attackers' overhead vantage point. A smaller squad of three or four militants simultaneously hit an Ahmedi mosque in Model Town, a leafy suburb of villas. "The prayer leader was delivering a sermon inside the hall when I suddenly heard distant gunshots," Bilal Ahmed, a worshipper told AFP after fleeing from the mosque.

"Then the firing became louder and closer and people started running here, there and everywhere to save themselves. The floor was full of blood and broken glass." Model Town was for many years home to Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader, and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, currently the chief minister of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital. The militants blew up cars with grenades and indiscriminately opened fire on worshippers. Among the victims was Ijaz Nasrullah, the leader of the Ahmedi community in Lahore.

However, lacking the tactical height advantage of the attackers' position in Garhi Shahu, the gunmen at Model Town were quickly surrounded by police commandoes and members of the provincial anti-terrorist squad, who successfully evacuated hundreds of worshippers. By about 2.30pm, the Model Town attackers were on the verge of being overwhelmed, prompting two of them to detonate suicide jackets containing lead ball bearings, aimed at killing as many worshippers as possible in the confined space of the mosque's prayer hall.

The police recovered the heads of both men, and took a third wounded attacker into custody. Some 18 unexploded grenades were disarmed. However, the tactical difficulties at Garhi Shahu meant that worshippers in the men's section of the mosque had no means of escape. Fleeing female relatives waited in tears on the roadside as the police struggled to advance on the mosque. Some worshippers were later evacuated in an armoured personnel carrier that was driven to the entrance of the mosque, but hundreds of others who had crammed into the basement for safety were out of reach of the police rescuers.

Anti-terror squads and police commandoes, assisted by snipers on rooftops around the mosque, overcame the militants and secured the Garhi Shahu mosque at about 4pm local time. They discovered four unexploded devices containing lead ball bearings. The tactics of the two death squads were reminiscent of the March 2009 attack in Lahore on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan national cricket team. Subsequent investigations pointed to the involvement of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Jaish-i-Mohammed militant groups, members of which fled to the Taliban-dominated tribal agencies of South Waziristan and North Waziristan in 2002 after being banned by the government.

The groups were closely tied to al Qa'eda leaders who took refuge in the tribal areas and came to be known as the "Punjabi Taliban". Ahmedis consider themselves Muslims, but have been disowned by mainstream Islam because they consider the founder of their sect a prophet, contrary to the basic tenet of Islam that the Prophet Mohammed was the final messenger of God. Pakistan enacted a law in 1974 declaring Ahmedis to be non-Muslim, and they are officially considered a religious minority. They are looked upon with suspicion by much of the Pakistani public.

However, yesterday's attempt by the militants to divide Pakistanis along sectarian lines was met with across-the-board condemnation. Shahbaz Sharif said he would launch an inquiry into the reported failure of the district administration to post armed police guards at the two Ahmedi places of worship, administrators of which had recently reported receiving threats. Mr Sharif said the incidents would generate greater resolve to combat extremism. "The entire nation will fight this evil," he said.

Yesterday's attacks provoked renewed calls for the Punjab government to launch anti-terrorist operations against thousands of militants believed to be resident in the province. The Punjab government has thus far resisted this, denying the presence of a militant threat in the province. thussain@thenational.ae