Lahore attack grips Pakistan

As Pakistani police yesterday hunted for the dozen gunmen who mounted a bold attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore, prayers were offered at police headquarters late on Tuesday for the seven people killed in the attack, six Pakistani police and the other the driver of a bus carrying match officials.

Relatives then took the bodies to be buried near their homes. A statement from the Prime Minister's office had earlier put the dead at eight, but police in Lahore said the toll was seven.

Pakistan has reeled under a wave of bomb and gun attacks in recent years, mostly carried out by Islamist militants linked to the Taliban or al Qaeda, but arch nationalists would relish a link being found between rival India and the Lahore attack.

Pakistan's pro-West President Asif Ali Zardari wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal yesterday that the "terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore shows once again the evil we are confronting".

The targeting of a visiting cricket team from a friendly country stunned Pakistanis whose love of the sport only comes second to religion in terms of forging a spirit of unity.

"Terrorism has hit at the core of what Pakistanis across class, ethnic and political divide love - the game of cricket," wrote security analyst Nasim Zehra in the News daily.

The reverberations were felt across the cricketing world and beyond, with US President Barack Obama expressing deep concern.

The US wants Pakistan focused on fighting terrorism, but there are worries Mr Zardari's civilian government could be engulfed by multiple crises less than a year after taking power.