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Gunmen, bomber hit 4 sites in Pakistan, 31 die
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-15 16:38

Gunmen, bomber hit 4 sites in Pakistan, 31 die
Pakistani rescue workers carry dead bodies of officials killed during a crackdown operation against terrorists who stormed the law enforcing building in Lahore, Pakistan on Thursday, October 15, 2009. [Agencies]

LAHORE, Pakistan: Teams of gunmen attacked three security sites Thursday in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore while a suicide bomber hit a northwestern town, killing a total of 31 people. The strikes were part of an escalating a wave of terror aimed at scuttling a planned offensive into the militant heartland on the Afghan border.

One of the attacks, on a commando training facility on Lahore's outskirts, continued into Thursday afternoon as security forces scoured the area for fugitive assailants.

The assaults paralyzed the cultural capital of this nuclear-armed US ally, showing the militants are highly organized and able to carry out sophisticated, coordinated strikes against heavily fortified facilities despite stepped up security across the country.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion fell on the Taliban who have claimed other recent strikes. The attacks Thursday also were the latest to underscore the growing threat to Punjab, the province next to India where the Taliban are believed to have made inroads and linked up with local insurgent outfits.

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President Asif Ali Zardari said the bloodshed that has engulfed the nation over the past 11 days would not deter the government from its mission to eliminate the violent extremists, according to a statement on the state-run news agency.

"The enemy has started a guerrilla war," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. "The whole nation should be united against these handful of terrorists, and God willing we will defeat them."

The wave of violence halted activity in Lahore. All government offices were ordered shut, the roads were nearly empty, major markets did not open and stores that had been open pulled down their shutters.

The violence began just after 9 am when a group of gunmen attacked a building housing the Federal Investigation Agency, a law enforcement branch that deals with matters ranging from immigration to terrorism.

"We are under attack," said Mohammad Riaz, an FIA employee reached inside the building via phone by The Associated Press during the assault. "I can see two people hit, but I do not know who they are."

The attack lasted about 1 1/2 hours and ended with the death of two attackers, four government employees and a bystander, senior government official Sajjad Bhutta said. Senior police official Chaudhry Shafiq said one of the dead wore a jacket bearing explosives.

Soon after that assault began, a second band of gunman raided a police training school in Manawan on the outskirts of the city in a brief attack that killed six police officers and four militants, Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore said. One of the gunmen was killed by police at the compound and the other three blew themselves up.

The facility was hit earlier this year in an attack that sparked an eight-hour standoff with the army that left 12 people dead.

A third team of at least eight gunmen scaled the back wall of an elite police commando training center not far from the airport and attacked the facility, Rathore said. Senior police official Malik Iqbal said at least one police constable was killed there.

Lt. Gen. Shafqat Ahmad said five attackers were slain in a gunbattle and suicide blasts in the facility.

Television footage showed helicopters in the air over one of the police facilities and paramilitary forces with rifles and bulletproof vests taking cover behind trees outside a wall surrounding the compound. Rana Sanaullah, provincial law minister of Punjab province, said police were trying to take some of the attackers alive so they could get information from them about their militant networks.

Officials have warned that Taliban fighters close to the border, Punjabi militants spread out across the country and foreign al-Qaida operatives were increasingly joining forces, dramatically increasing the dangers to Pakistan. Punjab is Pakistan's most populous and powerful province, and the Taliban claimed recently that they were activating cells there and elsewhere in the country for assaults.

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