Many dead in Pakistan hotel bombing

10/06/2009| IslamWeb

At least 15 people have been killed and scores wounded after a gun and suicide truck bomb attack on a five-star hotel in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Armed men entered the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city on Tuesday, firing at security personnel before detonating explosives, government and security officials said.

"It was a suicide attack," Sefwat Ghayur, Peshawar's police chief, said.

"Occupants of a double-cabin pick-up truck forced their way in, firing at the security guards. The attackers struck their vehicle into the hotel building, and it exploded on impact."

Medical and rescue efforts at the blast site have been hampered by power blackouts following the explosion.

UN condemnation

Most of those killed were Pakistani but Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, said two foreigners were among the dead.

The UN said one of them was Aleksandar Vorkapic from Serbia, an employee of the UNHCR refugee agency who was part of an emergency team recently deployed to Pakistan to tackle help the millions who have been displaced by fighting.

Peshawar is the capital of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) where Pakistani government forces have battled fighters loyal to the Taliban in recent weeks.

Taliban fighters have threatened to stage a series of attacks against civilian and government targets in retaliation for the military offensive in the province.

Inayat Ali Khan, a local journalist, told Al Jazeera that the attack was similar in execution to previous attacks in Peshawar.

'Tipped off'

Iqbal Khattaq, the Peshawar bureau chief for Pakistan's Daily Times, told Al Jazeera that Pakistani intelligence agencies and police had been "tipped off" about a possible attack by fighters from the South Waziristan and the Swat region of the NWFP.

"This building is also quite far away from the main road, so it was [thought to be] hard for bombers to carry out an attack similar to a bombing at a Marriott hotel [in Islamabad] last year.

"American officials and diplomats were often seen at this hotel; we do not know whether any are among the dead and wounded."

More than a dozen bomb attacks have killed at least 100 people across Pakistan since the Pakistani military began its offensive in the NWFP in late April.

Peshawar has seen at least seven bombings in the last month and the capital, Islamabad, has also been hit, with two police officers killed in a suicide bomb blast there on Saturday, the first such attack since the military offensive began in the NWFP.

PHOTO CAPTION

Pakistani rescue members search for victims among the rubble of a partially collapsed hotel after an explosion in Peshawar, Pakistan,Tuesday, June 9, 2009.

Al-Jazeera