Riaz Khan

Pakistani volunteers carrying a dead body out of the debris of the Pearl Continental, collapsed by a suicide blast in Peshawar, Pakistan on Wednesday. (Photo: Mohammad Sajjad, AP)

Suicide Bomb Attack Levels Luxury Hotel in Pakistan

Peshawar, Pakistan. Investigators searched a wrecked hotel in northwestern Pakistan for evidence on Wednesday after a bold suicide bombing killed 11 people, including aid workers, in what the UN condemned as a “heinous terrorist attack.’’

Elsewhere in the volatile region, security forces killed 70 suspected militants in an area close to two major Taliban tribal strongholds, intelligence officials sa id.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing late on Tuesday of the Peshawar Pearl Continental, but the blast followed Taliban threats to carry out major attacks in large cities to avenge an army offensive against insurgents in the nearby Swat Vall ey.

At least three suicide attackers shot their way past guards and set off the explosion outside the hotel, a favorite spot for foreigners and well-off Pakistanis and a site the United States was considering for its consulate.

The attack reduced a section of the hotel to concrete rubble and twisted steel and left a huge crater in a parking lot. Senior police official Safwat Ghayur said counterterrorism experts, police and intelligence agents were combing the rubble for clues on Wednesday.

The Pearl Continental, affectionately called the “PC’’ by Pakistanis, is the ritziest hotel in the rugged frontier city of 2.2 million .

Security camera footage showed the attackers in two vehicles: a white sedan and a small truck. The vehicles pulled up to a guard post outside the hotel, with the car in front. A puff of smoke appeared near the car window. A guard collapsed, apparently shot. The vehicles moved into the hotel compound. A flash and eruption of dust followed seconds later.

The truck was carrying more than half a ton of explosives, senior police officer Shafqatullah Malik estimated.

The chaotic scene echoed a bombing last year at Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel that killed more than 50 people. Both hotels were favored places for foreigners and elite Pakistanis to stay and socialize, making them high-profile targets for militants despite tight security.

Both hotels are owned by Sadruddin Hashwani, who vowed to rebuild quickly and claimed the government was partly to blame for the attack by not providing better security.

Hashwani told Geo TV that government ministers get much better security escorts than the high-profile Pearl. “Government needs to think seriously who they have to give security — to foreigners or the ministers. Half of the hotel’s occupants were foreigners .’’

North West Frontier Province senior minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour denied the government was at fault and said closed-circuit TV footage showed the hotel had removed some security barrier s.

“I do not buy that there was any security lapse. There was enough security arrangements made by the government,’’ Bilour said. “I would say that this was a failure on part of the hotel management’s security. We are at war. Terrorists are out to cause big losses .’’

In Washington, two senior US officials said the State Department had been in negotiations with the hotel’s owners to either purchase or sign a long-term lease for the facility to house a new American consulate.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were not public and had not been completed. They said no immediate decision had been made on whether to go ahead with plans to base the consulate on the hotel grounds.

The exact death toll remained elusive on Wednesday.

North West Frontier Province Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told AP that officials reported 11 fatalities.

Other police and government officials could confirm only five dead.

The three attackers also died, said an intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

UN spokeswoman Amena Kamaal said three bodies pulled from the rubble on Wednesday were two Pakistani government staffers whose work was funded by the UN’s population agency, along with their driver.

The UN also identified staff members among the dead — Aleksandar Vorkapic, 44, from Belgrade, Serbia, and UNICEF staffer Perseveranda So, 52, from the Philippines.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday condemned the hotel bombing as a “heinous terrorist attack.’’

Associated Press

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