Nathan Hodge
Security

Punjab Attacks Continue Pakistan's Downward Spiral

After a siege of several hours, Pakistani security forces have recaptured a police training compound in Lahore that was stormed by militants armed with grenades and automatic weapons. Dramatic — video of the incident shows army troops storming the facility; several attackers were reported captured. The attack in the capital of the province of Punjab […]

Lahore After a siege of several hours, Pakistani security forces have recaptured a police training compound in Lahore that was stormed by militants armed with grenades and automatic weapons. Dramatic – video of the incident shows army troops storming the facility; several attackers were reported captured.

The attack in the capital of the province of Punjab should prompt some major concern about the internal stability of Pakistan: It comes less than a month after gunmen assaulted a bus carrying members of Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore. And today's gunbattle echoes the 2008 Mumbai siege that raged for three days and claimed around 170 lives.

While Pakistani forces marked the recapture of the facility with celebratory gunfire, a serious question looms: Could the United States become more directly embroiled in Pakistan's internal affairs? Pakistan is now a central front in the administration's campaign against militant extremists, but President Barack Obama has pretty much ruled out U.S. combat troops in Pakistan. While the United States has around a hundred counterinsurgency advisors in the country, top U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke has described U.S. or NATO combat troops in Pakistan as a "red line" that must not be crossed.

U.S. strategy in Pakistan is supposed to center on a significant boost in civilian aid, along with continued military assistance (and the occasional U.S. drone attack). But as Noah has suggested here before, when you say you're going after al Qaeda and its allies in the region, you are potentially expanding the roster of militant groups on the "to do" list.

[PHOTO: AP via LAT*]*

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