At least 11 people were killed and 70 injured when suspected Islamic militants attacked a five-star hotel in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar tonight. Officials said two foreigners were among the dead.
It was the latest in a series of attacks on Pakistan’s main cities which officials say are revenge for a military offensive against the Taleban in and around the northwestern region of Swat.
The militants entered the compound of the Pearl Oriental Hotel in a pick-up truck, spraying security guards with bullets before ramming their vehicle into the main building and detonating it. "It was a suicide attack," said Sefwat Ghayur, the city’s police chief. Another police officer said the pick-up truck got throufgh security because it appeared to be delivering hotel supplies.
Witnesses said the large explosion was followed by a fire that gutted the hotel, leaving a deep crater outside the four-storey building in the high security Khyber Road area. Rescue workers carried several wounded people, including at least two foreigners, to safety.
Television footage showed ambulances and police cars streaming to the hotel, which is popular with local politicians, officials, and business people, as well as foreign aid workers, journalists, diplomats and other visitors.
One of the injured foreigners worked for the United Nations’ children’s agency, according to a hospital official. An unidentified British man and a German woman were among the injured. There were reports that one of the foreigners who died was a UN worker.
Amjad Jamal, spokesman for the World Food Program in Pakistan, said more than 25 UN workers were staying at the hotel when the attack occurred. He said all seven WFP workers were safe, but he could not speak for other UN agencies
Rows of balconies appeared to have been ripped off the face of the hotel, where rescue workers struggled to help those trapped inside. A clutch of UN vehicles were among dozens of charred cars parked outside.
The injured and confused stumbled among twisted metal, with rubble strewn among the once-manicured laws of the hotel, opposite the historic Bala Hisar Fort and Peshawar’s golf course.
"I was sitting in the eastern side of the hotel building and suddenly there was a huge blast which tumbled my chair and I fell on the ground. As I rose from the ground I saw flames and smoke," said Ghulam Ahmed, a hotel employee.
"I was in the Chinese restaurant when we heard firing and then a blast. It was totally dark and people started shouting and running," said Ali Khan, a hotel waiter.
The blast was so powerful it shattered the windows of a provincial assembly and Peshawar High Court located nearby, Police estimated that more than 500 kilograms of explosive material was used in the bomb.
The attack echoed a similar suicide bomb attack on the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the capital, that killed 60 people in September last year.
It was the seventh deadly bombing to hit Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province, in a month. It was also among more than a dozen bomb attacks that the Taleban has carried out since Pakistan’s army launched an offensive in Swat and neighbouring districts northwest of Islamabad in April.
In another suspected militant attack on Peshawar, on May 28, twin motorbike bombs ripped through crowded markets, killing five people and wounding 100 others.
On Friday, a suicide bomb ripped through a mosque packed with worshippers, also in Pakistan’s northwest, killing 38 people and wounding dozens more in the deadliest such attack in more than two months.
The violence has raised fears that apparently widespread public and political support for the army’s offensive may wane. Officials are also concerned about the welfare of 2.5 million people who have been forced from their homes.
Dennis Blair, the US Director of National Intelligence, said in Washington on Monday that Pakistan’s was gaining ground in its offensive because public support for the operation was solidifying.
"For the first time, the Pakistan army operations in that part of the world have support of the government and the public. This is really different from the past, when the army went up and there was little backing," Mr Blair told intelligence officials.
Pakistani troops, backed by two helicopters, came to the help of a pro-government militia fighting the Taliban in a northwestern district yesterday, killing about 25 militants between them.
Richard Holbrooke, the new US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, also said on Monday that Pakistani public opinion was increasingly on the government’s side, as he renewed calls for more Western aid for the displaced.
The United States has pledged more than $300 million for the crisis, compared with less than $200 million from the rest of the world, he said.
"We have called on other countries to join us in this effort. In the end we are going to need several billion dollars for this small part of Pakistan," Mr Holbrooke said.