ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomb attack that killed 53 people at the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital bore the hallmarks of an operation by Al-Qaeda or an affiliate, Pakistani and US intelligence officials said yesterday.
Searchers combing the burned shell of the hotel found more charred bodies after the blast on Saturday evening ignited a blaze that swept through the hotel, part of a US-based chain and a favorite haunt of diplomats and wealthy Pakistanis.
Four foreigners were killed including the Czech Ambassador Ivo Zdarek, who was living at the hotel, his Vietnamese partner and two American Defense Department employees. An American State Department employee and a Danish diplomat were also missing, spokesmen said. The Interior Ministry said 266 people were wounded, 11 of them foreigners, after the bomber blew up a truck packed with 600 kg of explosives including artillery shells, mortar bombs and shrapnel.
“The sophistication of the blast shows it’s the work of Al-Qaeda,” a Pakistani intelligence officer told Reuters. Pakistan’s Army is in the midst of an offensive against Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border. The United States has intensified attacks on militants on the Pakistani side of the border, alienating many Pakistanis.
The attack was staged hours after new President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, made his first address to Parliament, a few hundred meters from the hotel, calling for terrorism to be rooted out. Zardari called the bombing cowardly. “This is an epidemic, a cancer in Pakistan which we will root out,” he said in a televised address.
Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani said the army stood with the nation in its resolve to defeat the forces of extremism and terrorism.
Saturday’s attack was the worst in the capital. The blast left a crater 24 feet deep and 59 feet wide, Interior Ministry official Rehman Malik told a news conference. Malik showed security camera footage from the front of the hotel, which had been bombed twice before, showing a truck trying unsuccessfully to force its way through security barriers.
Survivors said hotel security men had warned guests to move to the back of the building shortly before the bomb went off. Most people managed to flee from the fire before it spread but a Reuters photographer saw a body lying on a top floor balcony yesterday morning.
Malik suggested the investigation would end up pointing to Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants based in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Afghan border. “In previous attacks, all roads led to FATA,” he said.
World leaders condemned the suicide bombing, but used it as a rallying call for the continued fight against violent extremism. US President George W. Bush said in a statement that “the attack is a reminder of the ongoing threat faced by Pakistan, the United States, and all those who stand against violent extremism.” He vowed to “fully support the democratically elected government of Pakistan and the Pakistani people as they face enormous challenges economically as well as from terrorism.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has long been at odds with Pakistan on the policing of the two countries’ shared border, called for an “honest struggle” to beat terrorism. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wrote a letter to Gilani, to express his “shock and sorrow” over the attack. “We strongly condemn this act of terrorism,” wrote Singh.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) described the attacks as “despicable terrorist actions completely contradict the praiseworthy precepts of Islam.”
