PAKISTAN: Militants target police in day of violence

Record ID: 353825

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Militants target police in day of violence
  • Date: 16th October 2009
  • Summary: LAHORE, PAKISTAN (OCTOBER 15, 2009) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS MOVING TOWARDS BADMAN ELITE TRAINING CENTRE VARIOUS OF TANK AND SOLDIERS TAKING POSITIONS ON ROAD VARIOUS OF AMBULANCES COMING OUT OF CENTRE (SOUNDBITE) (Urdu) CHAUDHRY SHAFIQ, SENIOR POLICE OFFICIAL, SAYING: "I want to inform you that this was an attack on the Elite (Special Police Force) centre. By th
  • Embargoed: 31st October 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAAO0FW909LLOPV8XEOFC8SHEEC
  • Story Text: Militants launched a string of attacks in the Pakistani heartland and in the troubled northwest on Thursday (October 15, 2009), killing 29 people after a week of violence in which more than 100 people died.
    Gunmen attacked two police training centres, one a training school attacked earlier this year and the other an elite police academy set in fields in the city outskirts.
    "I want to inform you that this was an attack on the Elite (Special Police Force) centre. By the grace of God it has been thwarted successfully. Four militants were killed in the attack, and one of our men was martyred. We have cleared the entire Elite Centre," Senior Police Official, Chaudhry Shafiq, told reporters.
    According to police, three gunmen blew themselves up and two, including one who is thought to have been about 16 years old, were shot by snipers.
    Seven people, including one gunman, were killed at a regional headquarters of the police's Federal Investigation Agency.
    One gunman escaped and one was captured, security officials said. A suicide car-bomber attacked the same building in March last year killing 21 people.
    Ten gunmen, some of them teenagers, were killed in the attacks on three police centres in Lahore.
    The attacks in Lahore spread fear and sirens from police and other emergency vehicles wailed over the city as hundreds of police and soldiers sealed off the three sites.
    Pakistan's stock market slipped as the violence escalated at the start of the week, but the main index has since recouped the losses and rose 0.4 percent on Thursday despite the latest bloodshed.
    There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday's violence.
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