Islamist militants launched coordinated assaults on three police compounds in Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city, on Thursday, the latest in a wave of attacks by insurgents bringing the war to the country's heartland ahead of an expected offensive against their Afghan border sanctuary.
The dramatic escalation in violence appears to be an attempt by the Taliban- and al-Qaida-led insurgency to seize the initiative from the army and deliver a warning to the U.S.-backed civilian government. Thursday's assaults in Lahore added to a sense of crisis in this nuclear-armed country, now shaken by five major attacks by the Islamic extremists in the last 10 days that have killed more than 150 people — including a 22-hour siege of army headquarters over the weekend. The assaults began about 9 a.m. when a gunman wearing civilian clothes and a suicide vest burst into the offices of the Federal Investigation Agency, the national law enforcement body, and began shooting. The attacker killed two men and four civilians, but was slain by guards before he could detonate his explosives.
Soon after, four gunmen raided a police training school on the outskirts of the city, killing 11 officers and recruits before police killed all the attackers.
A third team then scaled the back wall of a police commando training center near the airport. The attackers stood on the roof of a house, shooting at security forces and throwing grenades, said Lt. Gen. Shafqat Ahmad, the top military officer in Lahore.
The four assailants were killed, along with a police officer and a civilian.
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