Today’s attack on a police training school in Lahore could be part of a worrying trend. This was not suicide bombing, but a commando-style raid, as per the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team which left seven dead in the same city earlier this month, and the attacks on the hotels in Mumbai, India last year. 

If these incidents are tactically connected, the finger of suspicion could point to homegrown Lashkar-e-Taiba militants. A senior army officer said the attackers were “Afghans”, but a police recruit read more

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I’ve just interviewed Sri Lanka’s top spin bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan, about a story that’s doing the rounds. Conspiracy? Collusion with terrorists? He says it’s just a load of spin.

Was the attack on the Sri Lanka test team and the umpires an inside job? Quite an allegation – but that’s what’s been suggested.

The Pakistan captain, Younus Khan told a news conference yesterday: “Thank God we decided to leave our hotel five minutes after the Sri Lankans.” He put it down to good fortune.

But eyebrows have been raised over this unexplained five-minute delay between the departure from the Pearl Continental Hotel of the Sri Lankan team bus and the Pakistan team bus. read more

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I’ve just had a very insightful chat with Ahmed Rashid, doyen of the Lahore journalism set, the best-selling Taliban-Qaida watcher and described by Christopher Hitchens as “Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter”. His latest book, Descent into Chaos, documents Pakistan’s apocalyptic downward spiral.

So what did he make of what went on in the upmarket Gulberg district at 9 o’clock this morning? “Pakistan,” he said to me, ominously, “is running away with its crises. It doesn’t bode well.” read more

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