Massive suicide bomb in Pakistan

[stressederic]

Deadly bomb targets hotel in Pakistani capital•

More than 40 killed as car bomb devastates Marriott hotel

• Police say "dozens" more believed to be dead

Katie Cooksey and agencies guardian.co.uk, Saturday September 20 2008 15:55 BST Article history

 

A view of the destruction caused by a bomb explosion at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Photograph: B K Bangash/AP

 

A massive suicide bomb blast all but destroyed a luxury hotel in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad today, killing more than 40 people and leaving many more trapped in the burning wreckage.

 

The vehicle blew up by the gates of the heavily-guarded Marriott hotel, which is popular with foreign tourists, residents and diplomats. The huge blast, which shattered windows in buildings hundreds of metres away, left a 10m crater outside the hotel, which was severely damaged and left largely ablaze.

 

The explosion collapsed the ceiling in a banquet room where up to 300 people were eating to break their day's fast during Ramadan, Reuters reported.

 

"A car laden with explosives rammed the gate at the Marriott and so far we have brought out 40 dead bodies, but the number could well be higher," Islamabad's chief of police, Asghar Raza Gardazi, said, adding that there were "dozens more dead inside".

 

The AFP news agency quoted a local police officer as saying that many more people were feared trapped inside the 290-room hotel, which is close to the city centre.

 

A security guard at the scene, Mohammad Nasir, said he saw a large truck that suddenly caught fire on its front before suddenly exploding. "It was a big bang," he said. Other witnesses described a number of people, including foreigners, running out, some stained with blood. Ambulances rushed to the scene.

 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. However,

Pakistan has faced a wave of militant violence in recent weeks following army-led offensives against insurgents in its border regions linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

 

The attack came soon after Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, had made his first address to a joint session of parliament, pledging that Pakistan would not tolerate any infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militants.

 

Zardari, the widower of the assassinated former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, has faced mounting anger within the country following a series of American missile attacks and ground assaults in Pakistan's north-west tribal regions, near the Afghan border.

 

"We will not tolerate the violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity by any power in the name of combating terrorism," Zardari told the parliament in Islamabad today.

 

Bhutto was killed as she attended an election rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi in December.

 

Two weeks ago, 12 people died and 50 were injured when a car full of explosives drove into a security checkpoint outside Peshawar in north-west Pakistan.

 

Last month 25 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a hospital in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

 

Guardian

 

That picture is insane

[stressederic]

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[Gunga Din]

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[Euphrates]

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Edited September 21, 2008 by Euphrates

[Stevie H]

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