 Suspected US missiles killed three people in a Taliban-riddled northwest region yesterday, as Pakistanis reeled from a day's worth of bombings that killed at least 59. Twin bomb blasts tore through a busy market in Pakistan's second city of Lahore early yesterday, killing 36 people and wounding scores more. Another 10 people were killed by a suicide bomber in the northwestern provincial capital of Peshawar, which has borne the brunt of Taliban attacks. The latest alleged American missiles hit a car carrying three people in a village near the town of Mir Ali, in the North Waziristan tribal region, intelligence officials said. Pakistan protests against the missile strikes as violations of sovereignty, but many analysts believe it secretly aids them. The popular Moon Market in the centre of Lahore was transformed into flames and rubble when two bombs exploded 30 seconds apart outside a police station and a bank. He put the number of wounded at 95. Lahore police chief Muhammad Pervez Rathore put the death toll slightly lower, while bodies were still being pulled from the rubble. "Twenty-seven people are confirmed dead but the death toll may rise. A total of 137 people were injured," he said. "The blasts knocked out the electricity. Fire engulfed the whole of the market. We fear there are still bodies inside." In Peshawar, a suicide bomber in a rickshaw approached a district courthouse and blew himself up, killing 10 people. "He got down and tried to enter the building but could not do so because of our security arrangements," said Bashir Bilor, a senior provincial minister. The bomber detonated about 6kg of explosives, killing 10 people, including a policeman, and wounding 44 others, said Zafar Iqbal, a doctor at Peshawar's Lady Reading hospital. "I was sitting outside the court when I heard a deafening blast," lawyer Rashid Hussain said. "I rushed to the spot and saw dead and injured lying on the ground. It was really horrible; there were body parts and the injured were crying for help." Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned both bombings, deploring "the loss of innocent lives", a statement said. The Australian
 At least 36 people have been killed and 140 wounded in twin explosions at a busy marketplace in the northeast Pakistani city of Lahore. The blasts took place on Monday at the Moon Market in Lahore's Iqbal Town locality, a senior police official said. Witnesses said ambulances and rescue teams had reached the blast site, and the injured were being shifted to a nearby hospital. "[They were] bomb attacks, near simultaneous, but it is not clear if it was a planted bomb or detonated in a vehicle. At least seven people were killed," Mohammad Khalid, a senior Lahore police official, said. One of the blasts hit the outside of bank and one was in front of a police area, another police official said. Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said: "This marketplace would have been packed. It's a place where families go to socialise. This underscores, yet again, how fragile and dangerous the situation in Pakistan is. "Reports say there have been two separate blasts, but the pictures that we're seeing on local television here show mass fires breaking out ... it is likely the death toll will rise." Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent also in Islamabad, said: "Immediately after the explosion, the entire area was plunged into darkness and rescue teams went in as fires burned throughout the shops. The attack in Lahore was the third in the country on Monday, with one earlier in Peshawar, and a smaller one in Quetta.
At least seven people were killed in a suicide bomb attack outside a court in the northwestern city of Peshawar earlier during the day.
The bomber blew himself up at the gate to the court building after police stopped him, officials said.
Three of those killed were policemen. Dozens of other people were injured.
Peshawar, near the Afghan border, has been targeted repeatedly since Pakistan sent its troops to fight the Taliban in the tribal region of South Waziristan. Also on Monday, eight people, including a child, were injured in a bomb attack in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, police said. The bomb, hidden in a motorcycle parked outside the gate of a government residential complex, was allegedly detonated by remote control, police said. The Pakistani military said on Monday that its troops had killed four suspected fighters in a search operation in the northwestern Swat valley. The army launched a successful offensive there in April and his since launched an offensive against fighters in the tribal regions along the country's border with Afghanistan. Al Jazeera 
 Come Friday prayers in Lahore, it is not hard to find the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed is neither in hiding nor in jail. The founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba is instead delivering a sermon to thousands of devoteees at the Jamia al-Qadsia mosque — one of the biggest in the city. “God has promised to make Muslims a superpower if we follow the right path,” Mr Saeed told his followers, who listened in rapt silence. Outside, policemen with machineguns stood guard and bearded security men frisked all those entering. “Our rulers are the slave of America and have sold their conscience for a few dollars,” continued the diminutive former university teacher, his long beard dyed red with henna. Analysts say that the problem lies with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which backed Mr Saeed when he founded Lashkar-e-Taiba in 1990 to fight Indian rule in the disputed region of Kashmir. Under pressure from the US, Pakistan banned the group in 2002, but it continued to operate under the banner of Jamaat-ud Dawa, which Mr Saeed also founded and calls a charity organisation. A UN Security Council resolution last December declared Jamaat-ud Dawa a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, forcing Pakistan to freeze its assets and jail many of its activists. Mr Saeed was put under house detention, but released after a few months when a court ruled that action against him and his group was illegal. This week a Lahore court threw out two anti-terrorism cases against him. The court also found no evidence that Jamaat-ud Dawa was involved in terrorism, and it should be allowed to operate freely.
Pakistani officials say that they are serious about cracking down on militant groups, but there is not enough evidence to put Mr Saeed back on trial. Times Online
 A career in rock ’n’ roll might not be a conventional – or easy – choice for young Pakistanis, but despite the militant insurgency and social difficulties, aspiring musicians are finding ways to keep an alternative music scene alive.
Even with accelerating Taliban violence, Pakistan’s underground music-makers are rocking on.
“Our students have started forming bands; the youngest group consists of three seven-year-old boys. All play astonishingly well, and are fast improving every day”, says Abid Khan, one of the founders and teachers of Lahore’s Guitar School, which opened recently on the back of growing interest in contemporary music, stimulated by satellite television and the increasingly free and diverse broadcast media.
This has given Pakistani rock a contemporary foothold from which many bands have moved on to establish their own methods of promotion through social networking sites, putting their work on MySpace and Facebook.
Radio stations across the country are increasingly playing tracks by rising Pakistani bands and now musicians and teachers are encouraging youth participation.
At Lahore’s Guitar School, for example, almost 50 students attend classes given by established rock ’n’ rollers, most often in guitar. Khan says the school, in the city’s Defence district, was established in the face of declining demand for musicians in Pakistan, but on the back of popular interest in Pakistani rock. “All we were focusing on in the beginning was to make money to get by, as work for musicians and opportunities in general were depleting. Teaching and sharing our skills with others was the most logical thing that came to mind,” he explains.
The school, which also teaches music theory and keeps a library of independent records, quickly became not just a financial venture, but a social and artistic one. Khan adds: “Now that the school is up and running, we are realising the huge potential that music has for creating a healthy change in society.” Read more at the National
 by Amanda Hodge THE Taliban's wave of carnage continued across Pakistan yesterday, with at least 39 people killed in simultaneous attacks on three police buildings in Lahore and two bombings in and around Peshawar. The five co-ordinated assaults marked the 11th day of violence by Pakistani terrorists who have vowed to avenge the death of former Tehrik-e-Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, and strike back against a planned military operation in their northwest stronghold of South Waziristan. Two of the police buildings attacked yesterday were targeted in previous terror strikes this year, underscoring the weakness of a Pakistani police force under-trained and under-resourced to deal with a militant insurgency. The attackers were reportedly disguised in police and militia uniforms. They were armed with machineguns, hand grenades and suicide belts. The third attack targeted the Bedian Elite Police Training Centre, near Lahore's international airport. Five attackers, including at least one teenager, scaled the back wall of the commando academy at Bedian, sparking a siege that dragged on nearly four hours before the army announced it was in full control. Police officer Mohammad Azfar said one young gunman was shot in the head, and eight grenades were found on his body. "He was 15, 16 years old. He could not detonate his (suicide) jacket," Mr Azfar said. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the country was facing a new war. "They are involved in guerilla war. First they were active in NWFP (North West Frontier Province), now they are engaged in Punjab.
They are terrorists paid to destabilise Pakistan," he said. "The whole nation should be united against this handful of terrorists and, God willing, we will defeat them." Yesterday's carnage follows a string of attacks claimed by Tehrik-e-Taliban militants over the past 11 days that have killed at least 137 people. At least 52 civilians were killed last Friday when a suicide bomber rammed his car into a market in Peshawar, capital of the NWFP. The following day, Taliban-linked gunmen staged the brazen attack on army headquarters near Islamabad. About 23 people were killed in the commando operation to free 39 hostages. Read more here,,,, Source: The Austraian
 Both the Hindustan Times here and Debka hereare reporting on multiple attacks against Pakistani Government installations. From the Hindustan Times Pakistan was today rattled by a deadly wave of terror attacks by suspected Taliban militants who stormed three security facilities in Lahore and carried out a suicide bombing at a police station in Kohat and an explosion in the NWFP capital Peshawar, leaving at least 40 people dead. Police said 18 people — 13 security personnel and five civilians — were killed in coordinated attacks on provincial headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and two police training facilities in Punjab’s capital Lahore by three groups of terrorists between 9.15 am and 9.40 am local time, the fifth terror strike in the country within 11 days. Ten of the attackers were also gunned down by security forces or blew themselves up. One terrorist was captured alive from the FIA office. From Debka Lahore descended into chaos Thursday as one team of gunmen attacked the Federal Investigation Agency and took hostages before the attack was over, and two other groups struck police and commando training centers. At the same time, an unidentified missile hit a Taliban compound in North Waziristan. At least four people were killed. After the Oct. 10 siege of army HQ, which left 23 dead, Taliban warned that harsher acts were coming unless Pakistan called off its military operations against its strongholds and stopped working with the US. Analysis. The Taliban has taken the opportunity to preempt the coming Pakistani Army assault on them in South Waziristan. By conducting homicide bombing and conventional attacks against these facilities, especially threatening the Pakistani nuclear facilities, they are attempting to force the Pakistani Army to disperse the some 60,000 soldiers who have been deployed for this offensive. The Taliban realize that an attack of this magnitude will destroy them as much as is possible.
The Pakistani Army is highly professional. A large number of its officers are trained at the British military academy at Sandhurst. They attend British and American intermediate and senior service schools. They also realize that if Pakistan is to become a modern country, the fundamentalists must have their influence reduced to a negligible level. At the same time the Taliban are aware that a serious threat to the Pakistani nuclear facilities will get India’s attention as well as Pakistan’s attention.
There is no way that India would allow the nuclear facilities to fall into Taliban hands. Ditto for the US. By threatening these facilities, they are attempting to get international pressure applied to call off the offensive and protect the nuclear facilities. Yet the solution to the problem is to conduct the offensive and force the Taliban to die protecting their strongholds. Source: World Threats
 AntiTaliban protesters in Lahore Angry protests are a common sight in Pakistan. Crowds often gather to denounce the United States or the Pakistani government, which critics accuse of being an American puppet. But in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore this week, several hundred protesters gathered on a scorching day to take on a very different target: the Taliban. "I will fight them to my last breath and the last drop of my blood in my body. I'm not scared," vowed newspaper publisher Jugnu Mohsin. She was leading a crowd of several hundred students, artists, writers and others, chanting "the Taliban is the enemy of Islam" in Urdu. Public protests against the Taliban started cropping up in various Pakistani cities after a video emerged showing militants publicly flogging a teenage girl. The Taliban's recent declaration that the Pakistani government and judicial system are "unIslamic" has also outraged many educated Pakistanis. Neha Mehdi moved to Lahore to study. Now, she fears her way of life is being threatened by the Taliban. "I cannot give up my education, and I cannot give up the way I'm living," the 23-year-old student said. "These Talibans have ruined the reputation of Islam." "There were threats here also from the Taliban that if we gather they might just bomb us," Mehdi said. More than 250 miles away, Pakistan's military continued its assault against Taliban militants who want to impose a radical interpretation of Islamic law in the country's northwestern tribal regions. Pakistan's government recently signed a deal that would allow Islamic law, or sharia, in the tribal belt as long as the law was imposed in accordance with the country's constitution. Mehdi and others in Lahore fear that the Taliban's version of sharia -- which forbids girls from attending school, as well as music, poetry and dance -- is slowly creeping into Lahore, the center of Pakistani culture. "Our way of life is being threatened," said Kamiar Rokni, a fashion designer who took part in the protest. "And if we don't do anything about it, then you're just going to be sitting around and one day the way you live and what this country's all about is going to stand for nothing." Rokni said he fears the Taliban "want to change the way we exist." Lahore may be hundreds of miles away from the Taliban-held areas outside Islamabad, but it is no stranger to militant attacks. "Last year we lost 39 people in acts of terrorism and this year we have lost 17 people in Lahore alone," Lahore police Chief Parvez Rathore said. As he speaks, a heavily armed escort is one step behind the police chief even as he walks outside the walls of the city's police headquarters. In March, gunmen attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore, killing six Pakistani police officers and the team's driver. Weeks later, militants dressed in police uniforms stormed a police training center in the city, prompting an eight-hour stand-off with police. Eight cadets were killed during the March 30 siege, which the government blamed on Pakistan's Taliban. Police in Lahore said the attacks would not have been possible without local support. Residents say there is no doubt that the Taliban have support in Pakistan's second largest city. "They're here in Lahore, this is the thing," said Jamal Rahman, who plays guitar for the Lahore-based band, "Lal" which means "Red." "Little groups of the Taliban are going around and intimidating people, causing fear, telling women to cover up and if they don't they'll shoot them." Rahman and his cousin, Aider -- who plays flute for "Lal" -- are using their music to rally society against what he says is a growing threat by the Taliban. "We want to try to get people aware, and try to get people activated and motivated to fight against this militancy," he said. It is unclear if the protests and rallying cries from Rahman and the others in Lahore are the start of a mass movement or simply the swan song of Pakistan's wealthy, urban elite who could be the first to leave if the suicide bombers and insurgents succeed in further destabilizing the country. Either way, their message is a sign that more Pakistanis believe the Taliban's threat is directed at them, and not just a reaction to the so-called U.S.-led "war on terror." Mehdi said she fears her life as a student could come to a violent end if the people of Lahore do not stand up to Islamic extremists. "If the Taliban take over then I'll be on the road being flogged by one of them like they did in Swat and I don't want that," she said. Some Pakistanis are resorting to violence to defend their turf. More than 30 people were killed in the southern port city of Karachi this week as members of the city's Mahajir ethnic majority group engaged in deadly clashes with ethnic Pashtuns. The Taliban is a mostly Pashtun movement. The government in Karachi has issued a "shoot on sight" order to security forces, to try to maintain calm in the city. A week before the clashes erupted, a leader of the MQM political party, which represents the Mahajir community in Karachi, said his supporters would fight back against what he called the "Talibanization" of his city. "You have to take the nasty decisions now," Haider Abbas Rizvi told CNN last week. "You have to take effective measures to control these Taliban ...otherwise the Taliban will take over." Source: CNN
H/T: JihadWatch
 ATTACKERS armed with guns and grenades killed at least 20 policemen at a training centre in the Pakistani city of Lahore today. Other police officials said the number of casualties may be higher given the heavy crossfire between the attackers holed up at the training centre and paramilitary troops who fanned around the perimeter of the ground.“The number of killed is at least 20,” police sub inspector Amjad Ahmad told AFP outside the police training ground in Manawan. “The number of casualties may be more,” said police official Rias ad Bajwa.Television footage showed bodies of policemen lying face down on the parade ground as heavy gunfire rattled out of the training ground at Manawan outside Pakistan's cultural capital Lahore.Paramilitary soldiers, armed and wearing flak jackets and helmets, opened fire and fanned out around the perimeter of the site, which was surrounded by scores of police cars and armoured vehicles, an AFP reporter said.Officials in Islamabad said the interior ministry chief was locked in an emergency meeting with senior police and security officials. The attack came weeks after another attackers armed with guns and grenades mounted a coordinated assault on Sri Lanka's touring cricket team on March 3, killing eight people and wounding seven members of the squad. Those attackers walked away unhindered by police and authorities have not announced any high-profile arrest in connection with the assault, which has at least temporarily ended Pakistani chances of hosting international sport. Officials said that assault bore the hallmarks of the November 2008 attack on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai, which was blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic militants and killed 165 people. Lahore is Pakistan's second largest city and capital of wheat-bowl Punjab province which also country's political nerve centre. Extremists opposed to the Pakistan government's decision to side with the US in its “war on terror” have carried out a series of bombings and other attacks that have killed nearly 1,700 people in less than two years. Much of the unrest has been concentrated in northwest Pakistan, where the army has been bogged down fighting Taliban militants and al-Qa’ida extremist On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a packaged mosque in a town in the northwestern tribal town of Jamrud, killing around 50 people. US officials say northwest Pakistan has degenerated into a safe haven for al-Qa’ida and Taliban militants who fled the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and have regrouped to launch attacks on foreign troops across the border. Such is the scale of extremist violence that US President Barack Obama has placed Pakistan at the heart of the fight against al-Qa’ida, tripling US aid to the nuclear-armed nation as part of a new strategy that also commits billions of dollars and thousands more troops to the Afghan war. Mr Obama said al-Qa’ida and its allies were “a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within” and warned Islamabad to “demonstrate its commitment” to eliminating extremists on its soil. Last month Zardari's government suspended Punjab's provincial assembly and administration, imposing central rule after a court ruling disqualifying its chief minister Shahbaz Sharif - brother of Pakistan's opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. The governor who assumed administrative powers shuffled the bureaucracy and police in order to establish his hold, but critics say the hurried transfers undermined the security apparatus. Source: The Australian
The trail of terror continues with cricketers as the latest target. The Mumbai and Lahore attacks, public executions and the murder of over a thousand civilians in the Swat valley by Taliban style terrorists are horrifying examples of atrocities committed by militant groups thriving on political Islam. Global Muslim communities require urgent measures in condemning the agenda of political Islam that distorts religious scriptures to legitimise violence. This ideology of Islamism is threatening to replace a moderate and spiritual Islam, leading to the destruction of society, particularly oppressing women and minorities. Muslims have a moral responsibility to engage in the social, political and economic development of the societies they live in. Global Muslim societies would do well in following the exceptional efforts of the Indian clerics in denouncing terrorism and de linking it with Islam. Sincere moral outrage needs to be expressed at Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, political kidnappings and assassinations, militancy in Kashmir, Shia Sunni killings in Iraq and Pakistan, fatwas that condone suicide bombings in the Israel Palestine conflict and other such atrocities that effect innocent lives. Muslims require the consensus of the international in combating extremism but our credibility is lost when we demonstrate selective outrage as in the aftermath of the Danish cartoons. Political Islam draws its lifeblood from the ideology of fighting the oppressor, but has clearly become the oppressor. Even though some Islamist groups have renounced violence and accepted the principles of democracy, marginally improved their stand on women and minority rights, they remain socially conservative. In Jordan, the Islamist party does not support the rights of women to file for divorce. In Kuwait the Islamists fought against the right of women to vote. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood will not allow a woman or a person from a minority community to become head of state. Unfortunately, militant Islamist groups thrive in the political vacuum created by oppressive regimes in most Islamic countries. Muslims must stop blaming the problem of extremism on catastrophic foreign policies for two wrongs simply do not make a right. Islamism is primarily a Muslim problem, threatening both Muslim and non- Muslim societies. We need to acknowledge there is a problem of theology when extremists talk of going straight to heaven after taking innocent lives. The roots of all modern militant Islamic movements can be traced to one man called Abdul Wahab from Nejd in the Arabian Peninsula. He set out to ‘purify’ Islam, believing that Muslims had drifted away from true religion. Wahab’s followers destroyed many sacred sites he considered idols. Attacking the arts for being frivolous and dangerous, Wahab sanctioned the rape; murder and plunder of those who refused to follow his injunctions. He was considered a heretic by most, for Makkah and Madinah were then centres of contemplative Islam, inhabited by Sufis from all over the world. In 1774-5 Wahab negotiated a deal with the then nomadic tribe of Saud, forebears of the current royal family in exchange for support in their quest for political domination. Most Saudi’s reject the name Wahabbi; they either call themselves Muwahuddin- Unitarians- or Salafi, refering to salaf, the venerated companions of the Prophet. In this blinkered view, no other version of religious truth can exist. This new face of Islam has nothing to do with Sufis, music, poetry, miracles or the countless devotional customs of Muslim cultures across the world. Under the patronage of the Saudi Arabia, Wahabism went from strength to strength. Abul Ala Mawdudi, a journalist who translated the Quran outside the paradigms of classical propagated the Wahabi ideology. He founded the political party Jamaat e Islami in Pakistan, making jihad central to Islamic discourse. Addressing non-Muslims as infidels, he grouped Muslims into ‘partial’ and ‘true’ Muslims. Mawdudi’s ideas of Islam as a revolutionary doctrine to take over governments and overturn the whole universal order deeply influenced Syed Qutub of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. These groups have been motivated by political upheavals and the rejection of traditional scholars. Syed Qutub’s brother happened to be among the teachers of Osama bin Laden. The extremism now found in Makkah and Madinah, the heartland of Islam, is the Wahabi ideology that the Saudis have spent millions in promoting through their outreach programs. There is no tolerance for Shias, Sunni Sufis or other Muslim traditions, leave alone non -Muslims. Unfortunately, there is no collective Muslim protest against the Saudi regime for bulldozing graveyards, destroying cultural and religious heritage in the holy cities, imposing a certain sexual segregation of the sexes inside the Prophets mosque at Madinah, radical sermons, or the distribution of radical literature outside Saudi mosques, many of them issuing calls for death to whoever they view as infidels or innovators of Islam. The problem of Muslim extremism began in the Muslim world and the responsibility of resolving it lies with us. The inability to present a picture of Islam as a peaceful religion is a collective failure of global Muslim communities. We could begin with increasing the decibel in condemning violence, sectarianism, standing up for the rights of women, stop demonising the other as kufaar (infidels) and show increased support for democratic movements in Muslim countries. It is time for the devout, silent peace-loving Muslim majority to speak for Islam. Let us become louder than the radical voices that claim to represent us. Sadia Dehlvi is a Delhi based writer and author of the forthcoming book, “Sufism: The Heart of Islam” published by HarperCollins India. Source: Indian Muslims
 Pakistan's main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif has defied house arrest, ramping up his challenge to the government, as riot police clashed with stone-throwing mobs in street battles.
The former premier, now the most popular political leader in the country, led about 10,000 supporters in a banned protest in Lahore, from where he has urged thousands of activists to march on the capital Islamabad by Monday.
Sharif, locked in a standoff with President Asif Ali Zardari since the Supreme Court on February 25 barred him from running for office, is demanding the government reinstate judges deposed by ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
'We don't accept this decision. The house arrest is illegal and immoral. All these decisions are unconstitutional,' he told a crowd after breaking his house arrest order.
'Come and join me. I am leaving the house. The time has come to march hand in hand.'
In the most violent scenes since the crisis began, riot police wearing body armour baton-charged protesters and fired tear gas.
Witnesses said more than a dozen people were wounded.
'The main GPO Square looked like a battleground. I saw at least two ambulances ferrying casualties to the hospital,' said resident Hanif Goraya, as Sharif supporters brought the city centre to a standstill.
'Police fired scores of shells, inside and outside the Lahore High Court building. A shell hit my left thigh, I received stitches. The injured include lawyers, political workers and some police officials,' he said.
At one point, crowds surged ahead of Sharif's convoy to mob two public transport buses blocking the route, forcing drivers to rescue the vehicles from being set alight, as a large police presence melted away.
His SUV inched through the streets and down The Mall of Lahore in a convoy of security vans, accompanied by private guards and supporters perched in vehicles and streaming behind on foot, an AFP reporter said.
'We tried our best to stop the crowd but they did not stop, Lahore city police chief Habib-ur Rehman says.
Nasir Zaidi, an intelligence official in Lahore, estimated that about 10,000 people were demonstrating in Lahore -- 3,000 outside the high court and the rest thronging behind Sharif, heading towards the court.
He was to address supporters in the city later on Sunday.
Facing the worst political crisis of his rule, Zardari has ordered a countrywide crackdown, banning protests, forcibly detaining activists and blocking provincial borders in a move that provoked concern in the West.
Soldiers armed with guns have sealed off the main entry into Islamabad from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, an AFP correspondent said.
The turmoil could not come at a worse time for the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, a central front in US President Barack Obama's fight against Islamist militancy and facing a wave of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked violence.
About 1,800 activists have been arrested since Thursday, the vast majority in Sharif's stronghold of Punjab province where the chief lawyer fighting to reinstate the judges, Aitzaz Ahsan, was also detained, officials said.
Analysts warned that a reluctant military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its 62-year existence, would be forced to intervene.
'The situation is getting chaotic. It seems violence will take over and compel the army to intervene at some stage, defence and political analyst Talat Masood says.
'The army is extremely hesitant. But it is giving Zardari a firm message to come to terms with the opposition to avert violence,' he says.
The massively unpopular president, widower of assassinated former premier Benazir Bhutto, has also come under huge US pressure to end the standoff.
Late on Saturday he held out concessions, vowing to appeal against the court ruling that barred Sharif from office and pledging to restore the judges -- albeit without providing any dates or firm details.
Musharraf removed independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and about 60 other judges in 2007, fearing that he would be declared ineligible to contest a presidential election while in military uniform.
The move triggered a countrywide protest, spearheaded by lawyers, that ultimately forced Musharraf to quit in August 2008. Source: SkyNews
March 03
MASKED gunman have opened fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team's bus in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, killing at least eight people and wounding six players, officials say.
Lahore police chief Habib-ur Rehman said 12 gunmen today attacked the convoy near Lahore's Gaddafi stadium with rockets, hand grenades and automatic weapons and were involved in a 25-minute shoot-out with the security forces.
“They appeared to be well-trained terrorists. They came on rickshaws," he told reporters.
A police official said two civilians and six police officers who were guarding the players were killed in the attack which happened as the team was heading for the third day's play in the second Test against Pakistan.
Television footage of several gunmen creeping through the trees, crouching to aim their Kalashnikovs then running onto the next target were aired by Pakistan's private channel Geo.
Broken glass littered the road next to a gun cartridge and an empty rocket-propelled grenade launcher. A police motorbike was shown crashed sideways into the road at the Liberty Chowk (roundabout) in Lahore.
Bullet holes ripped through the windscreen of another vehicle and a white car was shown smashed headlong into the roundabout as nervous security officers guarded the site.
Sri Lankan authorities said six players were believed to have been wounded though earlier reports said eight had been injured.
Local police officer Mohammad Suhail told AFP that two players had bullet injuries but were "in a stable condition".
In Sri Lanka, Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge said Tharanga Paranavitana and Thilan Samaraweera had been taken to hospital in Lahore.
Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardena was also slightly wounded in the foot, his father told a Sri Lankan local television station after speaking with his son by telephone.
Samaraweera is one of Sri Lanka's leading players. He became only the seventh batsmen in Test cricket to notch a double hundred in consecutive matches on Monday, scoring 214 after a 231 in the drawn first Test.
The shooting came as the Sri Lankan army pushed its final offensive against ethnic Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the country in a civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Fears of attacks by Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda have caused many teams to postpone or cancel cricket tours to Pakistan in recent years.
Australia earlier this month forced Pakistan to change the venue of a one-day series to the neutral venues of Dubai and Abu Dhabi when the two sides meet in April-May this year over security fears.
Australia, who also played Pakistan in three Tests at the neutral venues of Colombo and Dubai in 2002, have not toured Pakistan since 1998.
India also refused to send its team across the border amid heightened tensions in the wake of attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, which New Delhi blamed on militants based in Pakistan.
Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are due to jointly host the cricket World Cup in 2011.
Last month, Pakistan's cricket chief vowed to improve security arrangements for the 10th edition of the four-yearly event and denied there was a risk associated with staging some of the games in the troubled country.
Last month, security concerns raised by other teams forced the ICC to move the 2009 Champions Trophy out of Pakistan.
The elite eight-nation Trophy was to be held in September-October this year but the ICC was to announce a new venue in April.
The event was originally scheduled for last year but was put off after South Africa pulled out of the event and Australia, England and New Zealand showed reluctance to tour because of fears about players' safety. Source: The Australian
 Pakistani police officers tend to their wounded colleague in the aftermath of a suicide bomb explosion Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008, in Lahore, Pakistan. A suicide bomber blew himself up among police guards deployed in front of a court in eastern Pakistan ahead of a planned protest by lawyers Thursday, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens more, officials and witnesses said. (AP Photo/K.M. Choudary)By Asif Shahzad LAHORE, Pakistan Jan 10, 2008 (AP) A suspected Islamic militant walked into a crowd of police guarding a courthouse and blew himself up Thursday, killing 24 others and wounding dozens in the first major attack in Pakistan since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The blast at Lahore High Court, minutes before a planned anti-government rally by lawyers, was a bloody reminder of the security threats facing this key U.S. ally ahead of Feb. 18 parliamentary elections. Echoing an extremist tactic in Iraq, suicide attacks have become as commonplace in Pakistan as in neighboring Afghanistan, adding to rising pressures on President Pervez Musharraf as he struggles to stay in office eight years after seizing power in military coup. At least 20 suicide bombers have struck the past three months in attacks that killed 400 people, many of them from the security forces the most intense period of terror strikes here since Pakistan allied with the U.S. in its war against al-Qaida and other extremist groups in 2001. Read more ...Source: APMuslims Against Sharia condemn the murderers responsible for the homicide bombing in Lahore.
Our prayers are with the victims of this atrocity. We send our condolences to their loved ones.
May the homicide bomber rot in hell for eternity. May his accomplices join him soon!
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
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Suspected US missiles killed three people in a Taliban-riddled northwest region yesterday, as Pakistanis reeled from a day's worth of bombings that killed at least 59. 
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