Pakistan stunned by Lahore attack

By Simon Cameron-Moore

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani police hunted on Wednesday for gunmen who mounted the bold attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore and officials scrambled to figure out who was behind it.

The attack which killed eight people, six of them Pakistani police, plunged Pakistan into a "state of war," Rehman Malik, the prime minister's interior adviser, said.

"Be patient, we will flush all these terrorists out of the country," he added.

Six members of the Sri Lankan team and a British coach were wounded in the daylight attack as their bus approached the cricket stadium. None was so seriously hurt they had to be left behind when the squad departed for Colombo on Tuesday night.

New Zealand canceled their cricket tour of Pakistan planned for later this year, saying there was no way the trip could go ahead after the attack on the Sri Lankan team.

"We are not going. I think that's pretty clear. I don't see any international team will be going to Pakistan in the forseeable future," New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan told local radio on Wednesday.

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 latest attack.

The incident had echoes of an attack on the Indian city of Mumbai last November in which around 170 people were killed and which led to the Indian cricket team cancelling its planned tour of Pakistan, and a Sri Lankan team taking its place.

The group blamed by India for the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba, came from Pakistan's Punjab province whose capital is Lahore.

The police chief in Punjab province announced some arrests, without saying if any gunmen were among those picked up.

Journalists were shown weapons found at the scene and at other locations, including 10 AK-47 rifles, two rocket grenade launchers, 32 hand grenades and plastic explosives.

"They were determined ... it was a thoroughly prepared operation," police chief Khuwaja Khalid Farooq said.

The United States wants Pakistan focused on fighting terrorism, but there are worries that President Asif Ali Zardari's civilian government could be engulfed by multiple crises less than a year after taking power.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about the attack.

Vice President Joe Biden will consult NATO allies in Brussels next week as part of a strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by Obama, his office said on Tuesday.