From The Daily Mail U.K.

Pakistan sect demands protection after at least 93 members killed in militant assault on Lahore mosques

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 1:47 PM on 29th May 2010

Leaders of Pakistan’s minority Ahmadi sect demanded better government protection this morning as they buried many of the 93 sect members killed by Islamist militants at two of the group’s mosques.

The request could test the government’s willingness to take on hard-line Islamists whose influence is behind decades of state-sanctioned discrimination against the Ahmadis in the Sunni Muslim-majority country.

The attacks occurred minutes apart on Friday in two neighbourhoods in the eastern city of Lahore.

Two teams of gunmen, including some in suicide vests, stormed the mosques and sprayed bullets at worshippers while holding off police.

A Pakistani policeman carries the bloodied body of a worshiper at one of two mosques stormed by gunmen in Lahore yesterday

Thirteen people died overnight at hospitals, raising the death toll to 93, said Raja Ghalab Ahmad, a local sect leader.

Dozens were hurt.

Waseem Sayed, a U.S.-based Ahmadi spokesman, said it was the worst attack in the group’s 121-year history.

Local TV channels reported that the Pakistani Taliban, or their Punjab province branch, had claimed responsibility.

Ahmad called on the government to take action against the militant group, which also has attacked security, government and foreign targets throughout the country in recent years.

‘Are we not the citizens of Pakistan?’ he asked at the site of the attacks in the Garhi Shahu section of Lahore.

‘We do have the right to be protected, but unfortunately we were not given this protection.’

Police and civilians take cover during a gunbattle after gunmen attacked the minority sect mosque

Pakistani police commandos take position outside one of the two stormed mosques by gunmen in Lahore

People survey the minority sect Mosque where dozens of people were killed previous day. A security official helps his injured colleague during the gun battle

Ahmadis are reviled as heretics by mainstream Muslims for their belief that their sect’s founder was a savior foretold by the Quran, Islam’s holy book.

Many Muslims say the Ahmadis are defying the basic tenet of Islam that says Muhammad is the final prophet, but Ahmadis argue their leader was the savior rather than a prophet.

Under pressure from Islamists, Pakistan in the 1970s declared Ahmadis a non-Muslim minority. Ahmadis are prohibited from calling themselves Muslims or engaging in practices such as reciting Islamic prayers.

Mourners this morning began burying the victims of the attacks at a sprawling graveyard in Rabwa, a headquarters of the Ahmadi sect 90 miles north-west of Lahore.

Hundreds of men, women and children wept near bodies covered with white sheets and lined up in an open area for the funeral.

In a sign of the sensitivity surrounding the group, several Pakistani leaders who condemned the attacks did not refer specifically to the Ahmadis in their statements.

A Pakistani women mourn over the death of her relative, who was killed in the Islamic militant’s attack

People of Ahmedi community prepare graves to bury victims of the previous day’s attack on their Mosques by Islamic militants, in Rabwa Chenab Nagar Pakistan

TV channels and newspapers avoided the word ‘mosque’ in describing the attacked sites, preferring ‘places of worship.’

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the federal government had alerted Punjab province’s administration about threats to the Ahmadi community, and that the latest warning was sent Wednesday.

Officials in Lahore, the provincial capital, said they were investigating Friday’s assaults.

Seven men in total staged the raids minutes apart, seizing hostages and apparently planning to fight to the death.

Three died when they detonated their suicide vests. Two were captured.

‘It was like a war going on around me. The cries I heard sent chills down my spine,’ said Luqman Ahmad, a survivor.

Shiite Muslims have borne the brunt of individual suicide bombings and targeted killings for years in Sunni-majority Pakistan, though Christians and Ahmadis have also faced violence. The long-standing sectarian violence in the country has been exacerbated by the rise of the Sunni extremist Taliban and al-Qaida movements.

Pakistani Ahmadi community members carry a coffin of a victim during a funeral ceremony at Rabwah, the headquarters of the Ahmadis in Chenab Nagar

A Pakistani policeman stands guard on a minaret of the Ahmadi minority sect mosque in Lahore

Pakistan’s Geo TV channel said the Punjab province branch of the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility

The Pakistani Taliban are believed to have played a role in the failed car bomb attempt in New York City’s Times Square earlier this month.

The attacks Friday took place in the Model Town and Garhi Shahu neighborhoods of Lahore.

The eastern city is Pakistan’s second-largest. It is a key political, military, and cultural center and has been the scene of some of the most spectacular militant attacks in the country over the past year.

The assault at Model Town lasted about an hour, and involved four attackers spraying worshippers with bullets before exploding hand grenades, said Sajjad Bhutta, Lahore’s deputy commissioner.

Several miles away at Garhi Shahu, the standoff lasted around four hours.

TV footage of the siege showed an attacker atop a minaret firing an assault rifle.

At one point, he raised both hands as if in victory, then moments later ducked when bullets struck the cream-colored mosque. Outside, police traded bullets with the gunmen.

Ahmadi Muslim women mourn the death of their relative, who was killed a day earlier in the attack

Thirty-six-year-old Ahmad was sitting among worshippers waiting for prayers to start when he heard gunshots and an explosion.

He lay down and closed his eyes as the attackers sprayed bullets around him. ‘I kept on praying that God may save me from this hell,’ he said.

After police commandos stormed in and announced the attackers were dead, Ahmad stood to see bodies and blood everywhere.

‘I cannot understand what logic these terrorists have by attacking worshippers, and harmless people like us,’ he said.

Bhutta said at least three attackers held several worshippers hostage inside the Garhi Shahu mosque. The three wore jackets filled with explosives.

‘They fought the police for some time, but on seeing they were being defeated they exploded themselves,’ he said.

At least 80 people were killed in the two attacks, and more than 80 were wounded, Bhutta said. A breakdown for each location was not immediately available.

Two attackers were caught and one was treated for his wounds, Punjab province police chief Tariq Saleem Dogar said. The fate of the two other gunmen was unclear.

One of the detained suspects was from southern Punjab, but had studied at a religious school in the port city of Karachi, a major militant crossroads, Punjab’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan said.

Ahead of the attack, the suspect stayed for about ten days at a centre belonging to Tableeghi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary group. Several Jamaat members have been on the fringes of international terror investigations for years.

Punjab province’s top executive, chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, appealed for calm.

‘We, our security forces will fight this menace until the end,’ he said.

‘Attacks on places of worship is barbarianism. It is a shame to spill blood in mosques.’