Attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore

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Sri Lankan Captain Mahela Jayawardene (right)
The route to the stadium is black and white, the attackers' escape route is shown in blue

During an international match of the test series in the Pakistani city of Lahore on March 3, 2009, an armed attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team occurred .

procedure

Twelve gunmen attacked the two buses of the Sri Lankan team , which was en route to the third matchday against the Pakistani national cricket team, injuring two players, six policemen and killing an uninvolved civilian. A total of 10 other people were injured. The attack took place near the city center on Liberty Square (Freiheitsplatz).

The attack failed, among other things, because of the reaction of the bus driver to immediately take off in the first bus Mehar Mohammad Khalil and drive directly to the stadium, which is 500 meters away. There, the players received initial medical care and were flown out by helicopter. Lahore's police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said the attackers were "well-trained terrorists " armed with rocket launchers, hand grenades and machine guns. The perpetrators managed to escape undetected.

background

Cricket can be considered the most important national game in the countries of the Indian subcontinent . Therefore the deed has a very high symbolic value. A criminal or terrorist attack on players, venues or teams thus triggers greater emotional consternation in the public than, for example, an attack on bank buildings or military units. Since the attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Summer Olympics (see hostage-taking of Munich ) , this is the first time that a national team has been the target of a direct armed attack.

The largest stadium in Pakistan was opened in 1959 as " Lahore Stadium ", renamed in 1974 after Libya's head of state Gaddafi and has repeatedly hosted World Cup games, most recently in 1987 and 1996. It seats 60,000 spectators.

consequences

For fear of terrorist attacks , foreign teams have previously canceled games in Pakistan, most recently the Indian national team. In 2002, the games with New Zealand were canceled after a series of attacks against buses in Karachi .

In the comments, the suspicions about the perpetrators are linked to the attacks on November 26, 2008 in Mumbai and the Tamil Tigers.

Pakistan was to host the 2011 Cricket World Cup . However, due to the attack, this was canceled.

In a drone attack the US forces in the province of Paktia is Al-Qaeda -Terrorist Qari Yasin killed on March 19, 2017th According to the US, he was responsible for the 2008 bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and the attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore in 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gunmen shoot Sri Lanka cricketers . In: BBC News , March 3, 2009. 
  2. ↑ Sri Lankan's 'safe and out of danger' after Pakistan terror attack . In: The Telegraph , March 3, 2009. 
  3. ↑ Pakistan Wrestles With Terror , Forbes . March 3, 2009. Retrieved March 5, 2009. 
  4. ^ Echoes of Munich , The Guardian . March 4, 2009. Retrieved March 5, 2009. 
  5. ↑ Dozens of dead in Peru. In: defense.gov . March 26, 2017. Retrieved March 26, 2017 .