Suicide bombing in Pakistan kills at least 38 at popular hotel

The restaurants in the hotel were packed with diners when the truck rammed a metal gate in front.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber detonated a dump truck packed with a ton of explosives outside the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital Saturday, setting off a fiery blast that shattered the hotel, killed at least 38 people and wounded hundreds, officials and witnesses said.

The blast targeting the U.S. hotel chain appeared to be one of the largest terrorist attacks ever in Pakistan, leaving a vast crater some 30 feet deep in front of the main building, where rescuers ferried a stream of bloodied bodies.

The five-story Marriott had been a favorite place for foreigners as well as Pakistani politicians and business people to stay and socialize in Islamabad despite repeated militant attacks. One American was confirmed among the dead.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman said 250 people were wounded. Hospital staff and other officials said 21 foreigners were among those in their treatment, including four Britons, four Germans, two Americans and one each from Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Libya, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

The bombing came just hours after President Asif Ali Zardari made his first address to Parliament and days ahead of the new leader’s meeting with President Bush on Tuesday in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Rehman Malik, the head of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that authorities had received intelligence that there might be militant activity due to Zardari’s inaugural address. Security had been tightened, he said.

Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, Pakistani officials have warned that militancy could heat up after a wave of cross-border strikes on militant bases by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, which had angered public opinion.

IntelCenter, a group that monitors al-Qaida communications, said senior al-Qaida leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who claimed the June Danish Embassy bombing in Islamabad, threatened additional attacks against Western interests in Pakistan in a video timed to the recent anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“This is terrorism and we have to fight it together as a nation,” Malik told reporters at a hospital overflowing with the wounded.

President Bush said the attack was “a reminder of the ongoing threat faced by Pakistan, the United States, and all those who stand against violent extremism.”

“We will fully support the democratically elected government of Pakistan and the Pakistani people as they face enormous challenges economically as well as from terrorism,” he said.

The hotel served as the headquarters for the international media during the 2001 war against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. Its nearly 300 rooms and popular health club stood in a plot surrounded by government office buildings less than a mile from the presidency and Parliament.

Witnesses and officials said a large truck had rammed the high metal gate of the hotel about 8 p.m., when the hotel’s restaurants would have been packed with diners, including Muslims breaking the Ramadan fast.

A U.S. State Department official led three colleagues through the rubble from the charred building, one of them bleeding heavily from a wound on the side of his head.

One of the four, who identified himself only as Tony, said they had begun moving toward the rear of the Chinese restaurant after a first, small blast and that a second explosion threw them against the back wall.

“Then we saw a big truck coming to the gates,” he said. “After that it was just smoke and darkness.”

Mohammed Asghar, a worker from a nearby office with a makeshift bandage around his head, said there was more than one man in the truck and that they had argued with the hotel guards.

“Then there was a flash of light, the truck caught fire and then exploded with an enormous bang,” he said.

Mohammad Sultan, a hotel employee, said he was in the lobby when something exploded. He fell down and everything temporarily went dark. “I didn’t understand what it was, but it was like the world is finished,” he said.

Senior police official Asghar Raza Gardaizi said rescuers had counted at least 40 bodies at the scene and that he feared that there “dozens more dead inside.”