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Cricket Attack Conspiracy

Zilch5

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When I heard some details re the attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket Team in Lahore, there was one thing that made me, well, wonder: Apparently the Pakistani team was meant to travel in the same convoy as the Sri Lankan team, but was "delayed" on that morning. Apparently I was not the only one wondering:

Someone knew: Broad points finger over terror attack

ICC match referee Chris Broad has suggested that someone had advance knowledge of the attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore and held back the Pakistan players' bus to keep them out of danger.

The Briton says he has no evidence of a conspiracy but pointed out that the bus carrying the Pakistan team in Lahore departed on its journey to the Gaddafi Stadium five minutes after the Sri Lanka bus.

Broad said that, although the teams travelled at different times in a previous Test match, the buses had travelled together on the first two days of the second Test in Lahore.


Source: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/ ... 35147.html

The Australian umpire Simon Taufel also had his thoughts on the matter:

He said he was relieved to have got out alive but was angry he and the other umpires were stranded in a "war zone".

"You tell me why supposedly 25 armed commandos were in our convoy and when the team bus got going again we were left on our own," Taufel said

Taufel said that, when a policeman got onto the bus, he thought they were saved, but then watched with dismay as the officer threw himself over injured umpire Ahsan Raza, "trying to save his own life".

"Chris Broad said: 'What are you doing in here, you should be outside defending us' and Chris then asked him to get in the front seat and drive.

"He said: 'I can't drive, I don't know how to drive.' :shock:


Source: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/ ... 36696.html

That doesn't sound like they put their elite commandos on duty that morning, does it? Were the killed police men pawns? Were certain Pakistani officials in on this?

Any thoughts?
 
This is about more than just an attack on a cricket team.

It is an attack on the modern western way of life by Taleban-type reactionaries. In short, the long-running war in Afghanistan is spreading further afield. One UK paper yesterday speculated that this could be the start of WWIII.... :(
 
rynner2 said:
This is about more than just an attack on a cricket team.

It is an attack on the modern western way of life by Taleban-type reactionaries. In short, the long-running war in Afghanistan is spreading further afield. One UK paper yesterday speculated that this could be the start of WWIII.... :(
Or, quite possibly (given Pakistan's quite recent past history), the precursory skirmish to justification for a military coup. How much more stable was Pakistan, under General Zia?

But, yes, we are that much closer to the threat of a full blown, technologically advanced, Islamic fundamentalist state, with the Bomb.
 
rynner2 said:
One UK paper yesterday speculated that this could be the start of WWIII.... :(

Not again??! To be honest, if the predictions of the British press were anywhere near accurate we'd be awaiting the release of Now That's What I call Global Conflict - 53, by now.

Given that one common alternative to conspiracy is cock-up and given a little experience of the often bizarrely convoluted organisational structure of officialdom in all its guises in Pakistan, it wouldn't surprise me if this was simply a case of bad luck. It also wouldn't surprise me if someone official did have advanced warning of the attack. And, to be honest I think PM's suggestion is totally believable too. So I suppose, all in all, nothing would surprise me - but I'm not sure how this particular attack is any more of an indication of an impending WW3 than the numerous others that various parts of the world have suffered over the last few years.
 
Taufel said that, when a policeman got onto the bus, he thought they were saved, but then watched with dismay as the officer threw himself over injured umpire Ahsan Raza, "trying to save his own life".

And it's interesting that when the press cites one individuals action as evidence of heroism the exact same action from another is seen as proof of abject cowardice.
 
This may be the article I was thinking of (although googling for Pakistan and WWIII in the last 24 hours turns up over 500 hits!):
MICHAEL BURLEIGH: Forget Afghanistan and Iraq, will World War III start in Pakistan?
Last updated at 8:50 AM on 05th March 2009

The U.S. and its Allies have more than 150,000 troops in Iraq.

President Obama has just promised a further 17,000 soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan - to join the tens of thousands already fighting an increasingly desperate and intractable war against the Taliban.

Yet neither of these countries present the terrifying threat to world stability that exists in Pakistan.

This nuclear-armed state, long ruled by a grotesque litany of corrupt dictators and riven with militant Islamists, has now fallen into murderous anarchy.

What's more, it is the world's seventh most populated nation, with at least 170 million people within its fragile borders.

If World War III were to break out anywhere, Pakistan would be a most likely contender.

Nothing could better illustrate the extent of the danger we all face than the brazen way in which terrorists this week were able to attack the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team.
The Pakistani government was fully aware that the team would have been a prime target for terrorists - indeed India, England, Australia and South Africa all refuse to play there because of the threat - yet it was unable to prevent its streets from running once again with blood.
etc...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... istan.html
 
I suppose the police are stumped at the lack of arrests? This is a job for Batman.
 
Well, according to some people, we alreay are in WWIII - Western "civilization" vs "radical Islam". I am not really convinced of that - but if there is a chance of a nuclear incident in the near future, then Pakistan could well be where it starts.

It is a country on the brink of failure, and which has over 100 nuclear weapons. Now try and get some sleep... :shock:

But back to the topic - there are people who say there were prior warnings and that this was the reason the Pakistani team didn't want to travel together with the Sri Lankan one. And so far there has been no explanation for the delay of the Pakistani team.

And so far there were no arrests, and all of the gun men got away unbothered by any police or army personnel. But there are plenty of people who are rather suspicious:

Mr Taufel told The Times that that while the two teams had travelled to the stadium together on the first two days of the match, on Tuesday there was a five-minute delay before the Pakistani team left.

"One thing I have been impressed about in Pakistan as that logistically they are usually very well organised. They normally depart on time," he said. "We knew we were departing at 8.30 am on the third morning. As to why the Pakistani team left at a different time, I don't know."

He was backed by Muttiah Muralitharan, the most successful bowler in Test history, who questioned whether the terrorists had inside information.

"Somehow in this incident there were no police with guns on the bus," the Sri Lankan spinner told Radio5aa in Adelaide. "If someone was there with a gun we would have had a chance of defending ourselves.

"Normally all the buses go and we have four or five escorts. We left at 8.30am and Younus Khan (with the Pakistan team bus) at 8.35am.We divided into two - maybe they knew the information for the right time."


Source: http://tinyurl.com/bd8qjl

The other thing that bothers me here is this: Who will profit from this? Normally that question gives you a pretty good idea who might be behind something. But here?

I saw Imram Khan being interviewed here last year, and he pretty much said that cricketers would always be safe in Pakistan as anyone attacking them would lose all support. And Sri Lanka (unlike India) has very close relations with Pakistan - there just seems to be no motive that makes sense. And no one's claimed responsibility either.

It just doesn't add up to me. Sorry for the long post!
 
I am pretty sure there are lots of little factions within Pakistan who are willing to do terrorist acts. Parts of the army and the police may well have been in on it - the attackers themselves seemed to be pretty calm and professional, perhaps indicating that they had some military training.

Pakistan has for years now played a strange dual game, on the one hand allowing terrorists to live in Pakistan, and on the other hand occasionally making a show of appearing to be doing something (so they can get money from America). Both Musharraf and the present regime have done this. In short, they can't be trusted at all.
 
I think the cock-up theory works very well here.

How else can you explain how 12 attackers with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and hand grenades failed to kill anyone on board a stationary, unprotected bus when there were no police shooting back and the driver had been killed?

They should have wiped out the entire team easily and left them in a burning wreck, but failed to get a single one. The escape looks almost miraculous, or at least very suspicious...until you realise that terrorists are as incompetant as everyone else,
 
Mythopoeika said:
...edit...the attackers themselves seemed to be pretty calm and professional, perhaps indicating that they had some military training...

Well, given that by all accounts the official military and police response to the attack was totally snafu I'm not sure how logical that connection is.

Besides, Hezbollah, the FARC and the IRA, for example, are (or were, in the latter case...officially) capable paramilitary forces whose discipline, training and morale can be equal too, and in some cases exceeds, the professional forces set against them. Acting like a military professional does not automatically infer that an individual has any actual connection to the professional military.
 
Spookdaddy said:
Mythopoeika said:
...edit...the attackers themselves seemed to be pretty calm and professional, perhaps indicating that they had some military training...

Well, given that by all accounts the official military and police response to the attack was totally snafu I'm not sure how logical that connection is.

Besides, Hezbollah, the FARC and the IRA, for example, are (or were, in the latter case...officially) capable paramilitary forces whose discipline, training and morale can be equal too, and in some cases exceeds, the professional forces set against them. Acting like a military professional does not automatically infer that an individual has any actual connection to the professional military.

Well no, I wasn't really saying that the attackers were actually part of the military, I just thought that it was possible they had some form of military training.
 
Well I agree. The only possibilities here are

a) total incompetence on both sides
b) some sort of collusion
c) all of the above

Now they've arrested some people - but aren't telling anyone who these people are or which organizations they might be connected to. Which again makes you wonder again if this is SNAFU or something else.
 
I was just reading about the assassination of Heydrich. All chaotic. First attacker aims stengun at Heydrichs car, gun jams. Instead of speeding off Heydrich stands up in car and shoots at attackers. Second attacker throws grenade at car, doesnt fully go off but injures first attacker.

Heydrich and his driver now jump out and shoot at attackers. Heydrich falls down from wound received in grenade attack. Heydrich dies from bloodpoisoning later, caused by horsehar from car upholstery entering his body.

Massive f%$kups all round. Heydrich should just have driven off. Heydrich just had an ordinary car. Armour plating was on order.

The attackers had faulty weapons.

Shit happens.
 
I guess you have a point. We are used to seeing these slick operators depicted in various TV shows and movies. Reality will always be clumsier, I suppose.
 
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