London/Lahore, Mar. 4 : Few doubt that al-Qaeda or its affiliates in Pakistan''s tribal areas were the instigators of Tuesday's terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.

Suggestions that the Tamil Tigers were avenging their defeat in Sri Lanka are being seen as improbable, according to an analysis by The Times.

In hitting a visiting cricket team, they could not have chosen a target more likely to outrage a cricket-mad nation, humiliate its hapless Government and send a defiant message not only to India, Sri Lanka and other neighbors but also to the entire cricket world.

Amritsar, Mar. 4 : Following the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket team in Lahore, a high alert has been sounded along the Indo-Pakistan border in Punjab.

"That BSF (Border Security Force) is alert all along the border and the necessary measures are in place and some additional measures have been taken in view of the attacks," said Mohammed Aqil, BSF's Deputy Inspector General of Amritsar sector.

London/Lahore, Mar. 4 : The attacks on Mumbai (November 26, 2008) and Lahore (March 3, 2009) should be seen as classic "Fedayin" assaults - suicidal rather suicide - taught in Lashkar's training camps by ISI officers, The Times says in an analysis.

What Pakistan experienced in Lahore on Tuesday was a backlash, deepening the sense of crisis confronting a flailing civilian Government, the paper adds.

That the target was a moving convoy of visiting sportsmen underlines how far Pakistan has veered towards becoming a failed state.

Peshawar, Mar 4: The Taliban in Pakistan have now surfaced in Balochistan by organising themselves under the banner of Tehrik-e-Taliban Balochistan.

Engineer Asad, claiming to be its spokesman, said in a phone call from an undisclosed location in Balochistan that their organisation had no link with the Baitullah Mahsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

It wasn’t possible to verify the claim made by Engineer Asad or to know more about his identity, The News reported.

The man, who spoke Pashto in an accent peculiar to Balochistan, explained that the members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Balochistan (TTB) were all Pakistanis.