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Gunmen, bomber hit 4 sites in Pakistan, 37 die
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-15 18:03

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 37 people. The strikes were part of an escalating wave of terror aimed at scuttling a planned offensive into the militant heartland on the Afghan border.

Gunmen, bomber hit 4 sites in Pakistan, 37 die
Armed soldiers outside Pakistan's army headquarters in Rawalpindi, October 11, 2009.[Agencies] 

One of the attacks, on a commando training facility on Lahore's outskirts, lasted into Thursday afternoon before security forces killed the five attackers and freed a family they were holding hostage, police said.

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 FIA building was the target of a suicide truck bomb in March 2008 that killed 24 people and wounded more than 100.

Thursday's 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 gunmen raided a police training school in Manawan on the outskirts of the city in a brief attack that killed nine police officers and four militants, according to police and hospital officials. 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.

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