Analysts said the attack was a firm message to US President Barack Obama, who has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against al Qaeda, tripling US aid in a strategy, aimed at reversing the war in neighbouring Afghanistan. Such is the scale of violence in the Muslim nation that Obama called al Qaeda and its allies "a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within," and urged Islamabad to demonstrate its commitment to eradicating extremists.
"Terrorists want to tell Obama and his Western allies that they cannot be contained as Obama desired and are still as powerful and strong as they have been for years now," said Mutahir Shaikh, an international relations expert. "The attack also proves the weakness of state institutions and shows that a mere half a dozen professionally trained terrorists can take anyone hostage and occupy any establishment they like," he added.
Mondays attack mimicked the March 3 assault on Sri Lankas cricket team in Lahore, where assailants on foot, carrying back packs of high-energy food and hand weapons, killed eight Pakistanis and wounded seven members of the squad. "Urban terrorism is now in vogue in our major cities," said Shaikh, a professor at the University of Karachi.
Extremists, opposed to the Pakistan governments decision to side with the United States in its "war on terror," have carried out a spate of bombings and other attacks that have killed nearly 1,700 people in less than two years. "This is further evidence of the growing threat of terrorism to Pakistans state and society," security analyst Hasan Askari told AFP after Mondays assault.
"These groups want to paralyse the system of state in order to have greater freedom to pursue their ideological and political agenda inside and outside Pakistan," he said. "An isolated Pakistan will be easily overwhelmed by terrorists, which the world should not allow them to do." Much of the unrest has been concentrated in the north-west, where the army has been fighting Taliban and al Qaeda. On Friday, a suicide bomber ripped through a packed mosque near the Afghan border, killing over 50 people.
But the second attack in the Lahore area this month will fan fears that the net of violence is spreading. "Such attacks again prove that all the outside worlds security fears about Pakistans lack of governance are true," said Tauseef Ahmed Khan, an academic at Karachis Urdu University.
"These repeated attacks show total failure on the part of the governments law-enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies. Pakistans future is at massive risk," he said. Pakistan shelters a litany of extremist groups, spanning banned outfits, fighting for independence from Indian-rule in Kashmir in the east, to Taliban and al Qaeda in the west.
Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik hinted that home-grown militant groups were behind Mondays raid. "Who is supporting them? Who is giving them weapons? Everyone knows these banned organisations, namely Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad," he told a private television channel.
Top officials in Pakistans key US ally have openly accused elements in the countrys powerful intelligence agency of abetting al Qaeda. "What we need to do is try and help the Pakistanis understand these groups are now an existential threat to them and we will be there as a steadfast ally for Pakistan," US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday.