The Ceylon News

At least five Pakistan policemen have been killed and up to six Sri Lankan cricket players wounded by armed men in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

The attackers, reportedly armed with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades, targeted the Sri Lankan team's bus on Tuesday near the city's main Gaddafi cricket stadium, where Pakistan has been playing Sri Lanka in a test match.

Haji Habibur Rehman, Lahore's chief of police, said there were about 12 attackers, who "appeared to be well-trained terrorists".

"Five policemen who were providing protection to the team sacrificed their lives," he said.

TV footage showed gunmen with backpacks firing at the convoy as they retreated from the scene, several damaged vehicles and a lone, unexploded grenade lying on the ground.

Rehman said one cricket player had suffered a leg injury and another was shot in the chest, but neither injury appeared life threatening.

A helicopter later landed to evacuate the uninjured members of the Sri Lankan cricket team from the stadium.

Cricketers hospitalised

Police were still pursing the suspected attackers, and have taken one man into custody.

Daniyal Hassan, a journalist with Dawn News who was at the scene, said the attack occurred "very close to the local police station".

"The shooters had fled and no one could see in what direction [they went] ... but at this point they are definitely at large," he said.

A Sri Lankan ministry official said Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana were the cricketers hospitalised.

He said three other players were slightly injured and that Trevor Bayliss, the team's head coach and an Australian national, also sustained minor wounds.

Sri Lankan cricket officials said the test match has been called off after the shooting, and that they are working to get the team out of the country as soon as possible.

Sri Lanka's cricketers were invited to Pakistan after India pulled out over security concerns.

Security experts defused two car bombs and recovered a stash of weapons including grenades, three kilogrammes of explosives, a pistol and a detonating cable after the deadly ambush, the AFP news agency reported.

Security 'problems'

It was unclear who was behind the assault on Tuesday, and no one has yet claimed responsibility.

Pakistan has seen a wave of violence in recent years, and some foreign sports teams have refused to play in the country because of security concerns.

Sri Lanka has also seen attacks in the country's north and in the capital Colombo as government forces claim to be on the verge of crushing Tamil Tiger rebels and ending a decades-old civil war.

Authorities will be looking possible links to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger fighters, but military officials in Sri Lanka's have said they do not believe the group was responsible for the Lahore attack.

Hasan Askar-Rizvi, a Lahore-based defence analyst, called the shooting a "daredevil, well-planned, and well-executed attack which shows the strength of terrorist forces in Pakistan".

"[It] shows the problems in the security system of Pakistan," he told Al Jazeera.

Askar-Rizvi said he suspected the attackers' target was not specifically the Sri Lankan cricket team, but rather, to make headlines and embarrass the Pakistani government.

Mumbai 'pattern'

The Sri Lankan government condemned the assault as "cowardly" and said it was immediately dispatching the country's foreign minster to Pakistan.

Five police officers escorting the Sri Lankan team were killed [Reuters]

"I want to say it's the same pattern, the same terrorists who attacked Mumbai," he said.

"They are trained criminals. They were not common people. The kind of weaponry they had, the kind of arms they had, the way they attacked ... they were not common citizens, they were obviously trained."

Laskhar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the Mumbai attack, comes from Pakistan's Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital.

The International Cricket Board quickly moved to condemn the Lahore attack.

"We note with dismay and regret the events of this morning in Lahore and we condemn this attack without reservation,'' Haroon Lorgat, the board's chief executive, said in a statement.