The assault on a Pakistani police academy yestrerday echoes the brazen attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team - and before that to the deadly Mumbai siege.

All involved multiple gunmen striking in seemingly coordinated fashion and fixing on high-profile targets.

Their brazenness is also a marked feature - these were not random suicide bombings favoured by some militant groups, or drive-by shootings, but daylight assaults which witnesses said appeared designed to kill the maximum number of people possible.

As shooting continued around the police academy in Manawan outside Lahore, Pakistan's interior ministry chief Rehman Malik hinted that home-grown terror movements were responsible.

He singled out Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

The LeT is already blamed for the November 2008 siege in the Indian financial capital Mumbai, when 10 gunmen attacked two luxury hotels, the main railway station, a Jewish cultural centre and a tourist café.

It sparked a three-day gunbattle - dramatic television footage was beamed around the world - which ended with 165 people dead as well as nine gunmen.

Not only did the attack stun a watching world, it also soured a five-year peace process between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, with New Delhi citing "official agencies" in Islamabad - a reference to its spy service - for at least part of the blame.

On March 3, the Sri Lankan cricket squad were being taken by bus to the ground in Lahore for the third day of the second test against Pakistan when up to 12 men attacked the convoy of officials, coaches and players.

Firing automatic weapons, grenades and a rocket launcher as the convoy was nearing the Gaddafi stadium, they began a firefight which turned the upmarket district into a battlezone.