Al Qaeda suspected of Pakistan’s Marriott bombing

ISLAMABAD – The suicide truck bomb attack that killed at least 53 people at the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital on Saturday evening bore the hallmarks of an al Qaeda operation, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Searchers combing the burnt shell of the hotel found more charred bodies the morning after the blast that reduced the Marriott to an inferno. The Czech ambassador, and an American and German national, were among those killed, while some 271 were wounded in the devastating blast, according to senior government officials.Most newspapers estimated the toll would rise to 60.Internal security in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a country vital to the war against al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups, has deteriorated at an alarming rate over the past two years.The bombing bore the signs of an attack by al Qaeda or an affiliate, US and Pakistan intelligence officials said.A civilian government led by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was sworn in six months ago, after nearly nine years of rule by former army chief Pervez Musharraf, and is faced with the mounting militant challenge an economy on the verge of collapse.”They want to destabilise the country.They want to destabilise the democracy.They want to destroy the country economically,” Gilani told journalists yesterday.Hospital officials said fewer than 20 foreigners had been wounded.Most were discharged.The attack came hours after new President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, made his first address to parliament a few hundred metres away, calling for terrorism to be rooted out.The tightly guarded hotel, part of a US-based chain and popular with foreigners, diplomats and rich Pakistanis, was engulfed in flames for hours after the blast.Zardari made a televised address to the nation on Sunday and said the bombing was cowardly.”This is an epidemic, a cancer in Pakistan which we will root out,” he said.”We will not be afraid of these cowards.”Militants have launched bomb attacks, most on security forces in the northwest, in retaliation for the strikes on them.An al Qaeda video, released to mark the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, included a call for militants in Pakistan to step up their fight.Saturday’s attack was the worst yet in the capital.Nampa-ReutersThe Czech ambassador, and an American and German national, were among those killed, while some 271 were wounded in the devastating blast, according to senior government officials.Most newspapers estimated the toll would rise to 60.Internal security in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a country vital to the war against al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups, has deteriorated at an alarming rate over the past two years.The bombing bore the signs of an attack by al Qaeda or an affiliate, US and Pakistan intelligence officials said.A civilian government led by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was sworn in six months ago, after nearly nine years of rule by former army chief Pervez Musharraf, and is faced with the mounting militant challenge an economy on the verge of collapse.”They want to destabilise the country.They want to destabilise the democracy.They want to destroy the country economically,” Gilani told journalists yesterday.Hospital officials said fewer than 20 foreigners had been wounded.Most were discharged.The attack came hours after new President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, made his first address to parliament a few hundred metres away, calling for terrorism to be rooted out.The tightly guarded hotel, part of a US-based chain and popular with foreigners, diplomats and rich Pakistanis, was engulfed in flames for hours after the blast.Zardari made a televised address to the nation on Sunday and said the bombing was cowardly.”This is an epidemic, a cancer in Pakistan which we will root out,” he said.”We will not be afraid of these cowards.”Militants have launched bomb attacks, most on security forces in the northwest, in retaliation for the strikes on them.An al Qaeda video, released to mark the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, included a call for militants in Pakistan to step up their fight.Saturday’s attack was the worst yet in the capital.Nampa-Reuters

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