What the commentators say today...

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CRICKET TERROR ATTACK: While yesterday's terrorist attacks does not mean that Pakistan is a failed state, writes Bronwen Maddox in The Times, it is just a further example that the country has a failed president. She argues that Asif Zardari has been a disastrous replacement for his assassinated wife, Benazir Bhutto. Simon Barnes believes sport has always been the world's great soft target and had lived a charmed life until yesterday's attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. While Ed Smith, a former England batsman and now author, feels that the Lahore terrorists targeted cricket because they see it as a symbol of western modernity. The Guardian's Simon Tisdall believes that terrorist attack on Sri Lanka's cricketers has underscored fears that politically fractured, economically destitute, and militarily challenged Pakistan, if not already a failed state, is rapidly heading towards the pariah status of international outcast. In the Daily Mail, Michael Burleigh argues that although we have been fighting in Afghanistan for six years, the reality is that the war may just be starting in Pakistan. If World War III were to break out anywhere, Pakistan would be a most likely contender.

In the Daily Mirror, terrorism expert Farzana Shaikh says this is the first time a cricket team has been targeted by militants in Pakistan. But the real target seems to have been to make headlines around the world. In the Daily Telegraph, Dean Nelson examines if the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team will finally force the Pakistani people to confront the terror in their midst. Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, writes in the Daily Express that Pakistanis in Britain form the second largest minority ethnic group and while the vast majority are law-abiding, there are signs that a young minority represent a growing problem. In The Independent, Imran Khan, former cricketer and chairman of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party, says the terrorist attack was a major security lapse. This was not an ideological attack, unless a link to the Tamil Tigers is discovered. The attackers wanted to destabilise Pakistan.

Andrew Buncombe says the nature of the Lahore attack, the increasingly sophisticated tactics of the militants and the inability of the authorities to halt them pushes the country ever closer to the brink. James Lawton says for many familiar with the great events of the sporting calendar, who have for a long time accepted the paraphernalia of security as a routine, what happened in Pakistan was simply Doomsday delayed. The Sun's Anila Baig notes how many Pakistanis feel the same about cricket as British people do about football and to target the sport in a terror attack feels like an assault on the very heart and soul of this cricket-crazy nation.

BROWN IN THE USA: The Daily Mirror's Kevin Maguire suggests Barack Obama and Gordon Brown are drawing a dividing line between the progressives and those forces of Conservatism who would leave you on your tod. In The Times, Alice Miles thinks that even if Brown gets Obama onside it doesn't matter - we need an election now. Tom Baldwin notes how Brown got what he wanted in his meeting with Obama after the US President launched a full-throated defence of a "bond that will not break" between the two countries.

The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland believes Brown must take some responsibility for the economic crisis. He could even turn his speech before Congress today from a mea culpa to a nostra culpa because London and Wall Street walked down this dead end together. The Brown-Obama face-to-face was a meeting of intellectual minds, something we haven't seen in quite a time, body language expert Peter Collett suggests. The PM matched the president and in some respects exceeded him. The Independent's Steve Richards notes that the low-key talks between Brown and Obama were a far cry from the red carpets of the Bush-Blair years. The Sun's George Pascoe-Watson believes Brown is unlikely to enjoy any "bounce" from Barack Obama after their first formal talks as the Western's world leaders.