Pakistan's city of Quetta shut down on Wednesday following a militant rampage at a police academy the day before as the victims' families buried 60 police cadets and an army officer killed in the attack — one of the deadliest targeting Pakistani security forces in recent years. The brazen assault saw unarmed cadets and police trainees — many of whom were asleep in their dorms when the attack started — jump from windows and rooftops, fleeing for their lives. Pakistani troops battled the attackers for four hours before the siege was over. The academy houses about 700 cadets, nearly all in their early 20s. Local Quetta hospitals were treating 123 wounded from the attack. In conflicting claims, a Daesh (the so-called IS) affiliate and a Taliban splinter group both said they were behind the attack in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. But Pakistani officials later said they intercepted communication between the attackers and their purported handlers across the border in Afghanistan, blaming an Al-Qaeda- and Taliban-linked group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi, for the assault. Quetta trade leader, Abdur Rahim Kakar, said all businesses and offices were closed in the city on Wednesday, while marketplaces were deserted. Law offices and business communities in several other Pakistani cities also closed doors in solidarity while Pakistan's flag was lowered at half-mast at government buildings and other official institutions. Kakar said there were not enough ambulances and funeral vehicles to transport all the bodies home, so some families were forced to take away their dead on top of passenger vans. Naseer Khan Tareen, a merchant, said the government was not doing enough to prevent large militant attacks, citing an August suicide bombing that killed more than 70 at a gathering of lawyers on the grounds of a government-run hospital in Quetta. "We had an incident hardly three months ago where 70 lawyers were killed and yet we have another one," he said. "There can't be any bigger tragedy." Forensic teams and investigators were combing the academy on Wednesday to collect evidence, said Quetta police spokesman Shahzada Farhat. Baluchistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri acknowledged later Tuesday that the government had prior intelligence reports pointing to a planned large-scale attack. Local Geo News TV broadcast footage from a September parade of the cadets during which provincial police chief Ahsan Mahboob asked for funds to build a concrete wall around academy. Zehri attended the ceremony. Pakistan has carried out several military operations against militants in lawless tribal regions near Afghanistan, including a major push that began in mid-2014 in North Waziristan, a militant base. — AP
