Srilanka Team Back To Home Safely

The Sri Lanka cricket team has arrived home on early Wednesday, Geo News reported. The Sri Lankan players were also accompanied with three Pakistani doctors on flight.Relieved relatives gave the tour party an emotional welcome as the 25-member contingent was led from a specially chartered Sri Lankan Airlines Airbus A320 by team manager Brendon Kuruppu.Earlier, the Lankan team, following the Lahore attacks, had left Pakistan for home on Tuesday afternoon after it was taken from the Gaddafi Stadium through helicopter to the airport. Special arrangements were made for bringing the tourists to the airport and a special helicopter of the Pakistan Air force took them from the Gaddafi Stadium to the Lahore airport. Following which, they were sent through a chartered flight to Sri Lanka via Abu Dhabi.Chairman PCB Ijaz Butt, Director National Cricket Academy Aamer Sohail, chief operating officer Saleem Altaf and other officials saw-off the Sri Lankan players and the officials at Gaddafi StadiumStar batsman Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavithana, who both received hospital treatment in Pakistan, were placed in an ambulance and taken to a private medical facility in Colombo, a senior official said. Spin bowler Ajantha Mendis was seen leaving the aircraft with a plaster behind his right ear. A total of seven players and an assistant coach were hurt in the attack, which left eight people dead. Vice-captain Kumar Sangakkara, who was another wounded in Tuesday's gun and grenade assault, told reporters that the players had been asked by team management not to speak with reporters. Sri Lanka sports minister Gamini Lokuge also met the team at Bandaranaike International Airport, where security was tight, the official said. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but some Sri Lankan officials fear a possible link with the military offensive against ethnic Tamil rebels in the island's north. Sri Lanka were airlifted from Gaddafi Stadium by helicopter before flying out of Lahore late Tuesday, abandoning a tour which was only arranged when India refused to visit their troubled neighbour. At least a dozen men ambushed Sri Lanka's cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers on Tuesday, converging on the squad's convoy as it drove through a traffic circle near Gaddafi Stadium. Seven players, an umpire and a coach were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries, but six policemen and a driver died. The attackers struck as a convoy carrying the squad and match officials reached a traffic circle 300 yards (meters) from the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gunbattle with police guarding the vehicles. 'We were all tucked under the seats,' Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene said when the team arrived home in Colombo early Wednesday. 'Our guys were getting hurt and screaming but we couldn't help each other. We were just hoping that we will not get hit. None of us thought that we would come alive out of the situation.' The assault, just ahead of the resumption of the second cricket test, was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. By attacking South Asia's most popular sport, the gunmen guaranteed themselves tremendous international attention while demonstrating Pakistan's struggle to provide its 170 million people with basic security as it battles a raging Islamist militancy. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said the incident 'has humiliated the country' and the head of the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, declared Pakistan was 'in a state of war.' Malik told media that authorities were investigating whether the attackers wanted to take hostages. 'We are looking at the possibility the gunmen wanted to hijack the bus and take it to a nearby building and create a drama,' Malik said. 'The way they came prepared and in large numbers indicates such a plan.' Tuesday's attackers melted away into the city, and none was killed or captured, city police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said. The attackers abandoned machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and plastic explosives, Punjab IG Khwaja Khalid Farooq said. They carried backpacks stuffed with dried fruit, mineral water and walkie-talkies - provisions also abandoned at or near the scene, officials said. Authorities did not speculate on the identities of the attackers, but the chief suspects will be Islamist militants, some with links to al-Qaida, who have staged high-profile attacks on civilian targets before. The bus driver, Mohammad Khalil, accelerated as bullets ripped into the vehicle and explosions rocked the air, steering the team to the safety of the stadium. The players - some of them wounded - ducked down and shouted 'Go! Go!' as he drove through the ambush. Authorities cancelled the test match against Pakistan and a special flight carried the Sri Lanka team - including two players who had been hospitalised - home, where the players were immediately sequestered to a private meeting with their families.

Srilanka National Team

A team of heavily armed gunmen, some traveling in rickshaws, ambushed Sri Lanka's national cricket team Tuesday as it arrived for a match, killing six police guards and wounding seven players. The brazen attack heightened fears that Pakistan is becoming increasingly unstable.
The assault bore striking similarities to last year's three-day hostage drama in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.
Working in pairs, the attackers in Lahore carried walkie-talkies and backpacks stuffed with water, dried fruit and other high-energy food — a sign they anticipated a protracted siege and may have been planning to take the players hostage.
The bus sped through the ambush, but the gunmen's preparations indicated they may been planning to hijack the vehicle, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik told The Associated Press. None of the gunmen were killed and all apparently escaped into this teeming eastern city.
Even though the bus was peppered with 25 bullet holes, none of the cricket players were killed. The attack was among the highest-profile terrorist strikes on a sports team since the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes.
In addition, by targeting not only a major Pakistani city but also the country's most popular sport, the attack was sure to resonate throughout the region, where cricket has been an obsession since it was introduced by the British during the colonial era.
In targeting the sport, the gunmen were certain to draw international attention to the government's inability to provide basic security as it battles militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban and faces accusations that it is harboring terrorists.
The attack ended Pakistan's hopes of hosting international cricket teams — or any high profile sports events — for months, if not years. Even before Tuesday, most cricket squads chose not to tour the country for security reasons. India and Australia had canceled tours, and New Zealand announced Tuesday it was calling of its December tour.
Besides the six police officers, a driver of a vehicle in the convoy was also killed, officials said. Seven Sri Lankan players, a Pakistani umpire and a coach from Britain were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.
Malik did not speculate on the identity of the attackers, but said Pakistan was "in a state of war" and vowed to "flush out all these terrorists from this country."
Pakistan has a web of Islamist militant networks, some with links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, which have staged other high-profile strikes in a bid to destabilize the government and punish it for its support of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
The convoy transporting the Sri Lankan team and cricket officials was surrounded by police vehicles at the front, rear and side, but traveled the same route each day of the five-day test match against Pakistan's national team, according to Malik. The attack occurred on the third day of play just before 9 a.m.
The assailants struck at a traffic circle about 300 yards from the Gaddafi Stadium in downtown Lahore, firing at least one grenade and a rocket as well as repeated automatic weapon rounds from a white car, before other gunmen attacked from three other locations, witnesses and officials said.
Lahore police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said the attackers arrived at the scene in motorized rickshaws and two cars, and police later seized a large cache of weapons abandoned in one of the rickshaws and elsewhere near the scene.
The arsenal displayed for journalists included rocket-propelled grenades, pistols, 25 hand grenades, submachine guns and plastic explosives.
Despite the onslaught, the bus carrying the Sri Lankan players did not stop, speeding through the hail of bullets and into the stadium, likely saving many lives.
As the players ducked, shouting "Go! Go!" driver Mohammad Khalil said he maneuvered the bus, pocked with bullet holes and its windshield shattered, into the stadium.
Bloodied players were helped off the vehicle and Sri Lankan team captain Mahela Jayawardene shouted: "Get more ambulances in here! Get more ambulances in here," according to Tony Bennet, an Australian cameraman covering the match.
At the traffic circle, gunmen fought a 15-minute battle with police. Pakistani TV footage showed at least two pairs of gunmen with backpacks firing on the convoy from a stretch of grass, taking cover behind a monument.
"These people were highly trained and highly armed — the way they were holding their guns, the way they were taking aim and shooting at the police," said Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, adding that they "used the same methods... as the terrorists who attacked Mumbai."
One militant group likely to fall under suspicion is Lashkar-e-Taiba, the network blamed for the Nov. 26-28 Mumbai attacks, in which 10 gunmen targeted luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites, killing 164 people.
The group has been targeted by Pakistani authorities since then, and its stronghold is in eastern Pakistan.
In the past, India and Pakistan — who have fought three wars since 1947 — have often blamed each other for attacks on their territories.
While some politicians and retired generals, along with ordinary Pakistanis, hinted at an Indian hand in the Lahore attacks, government leaders and security chiefs did not. Any high-level allegations like that would trigger fresh and possibly dangerous tensions between the countries, already running high following the Mumbai attacks.
There were also no indications that authorities in Pakistan or Sri Lanka suspected Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger separatist rebels, who are being badly hit in a military offensive at home and have staged scores of terror attacks in the past.
Rehman, the Lahore police chief, said the 12-14 assailants resembled Pashtuns, the ethnic group from close to the Afghan border, the stronghold of al-Qaida and the Taliban. He said officers were hunting for them.
U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters in Washington that the United States condemned "this vicious attack on innocent civilians but also on the positive relations that Pakistan and Sri Lanka are trying to enjoy."
The most seriously wounded cricket official was umpire Ahsan Raza, who underwent an operation after being shot in the abdomen, a medical official said.
Two Sri Lankan players — batsmen Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana — suffered bullet wounds and were treated in a hospital, said Chamara Ranavira, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission. Paranavitana was grazed by a bullet in the chest, and Samaraweera has a bullet wound in his thigh, he said. The team traveled home to Sri Lanka later Tuesday.
Cricket's governing body said it would review Pakistan's status as co-host of the 2011 World Cup
International Cricket Council chief executive Haroon Lorgat said the council will meet in Dubai next month to discuss whether to redistribute World Cup matches among India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the competition's other co-hosts.