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Al-Qaeda blamed for Marriott Hotel bombing – Pak Parliament was the target

	September 29, 2008

A last-minute decision to change the venue for the Iftar reception saved the top Pakistani leadership from the terrorist attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad last week. The Marriott Hotel was originally selected as venue for the Iftar-dinner reception hosted by the Speaker of the National Assembly on the fateful day of suicide bombing on September 20. Rehman Malik, head of the Interior Ministry, told newsmen on Sept. 22 that President Zardari suggested shifting the venue to the Prime Minister’s House at the last minute that saved the lives of almost the entire civil and military leadership of the country. Malik said that the terrorists apparently had information about the reception in the Marriott Hotel and targeted it for the blast, indicating that authorities had received intelligence reports on Thursday that “some big suicide attempt” would be made on Parliament during Zardari’s address on Saturday. He said the truck used in the attack tried to enter Islamabad’s “red zone” – a high security area in which Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Presidency and Prime Minister’s house are located – at the time of Zardari’s speech. But, orders barring the entry of private vehicles prevented the suicide attack from entering the area. Malik did not admit that the bomber driving his explosive laden heavy truck through city roads to the Marriott Hotel which is located in another part of the red zone, amounted to a lapse of security. He said, the truck was apparently carrying bricks and was allowed to reach the hotel where construction work was under way.



Almost a week after the deadly Marriott Hotel bombing four people were killed and over a dozen injured when a powerful bomb on a railway track derailed a passenger train in Eastern Punjab province on Sept. 26. The blast occurred as the Indians of the passenger train passed over the bomb near Hasilpur in the south of Punjab province. In another incident, three militants said to belong to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi outfit blew themselves up in a house in Karachi on Friday after an hour long encounter with police. The security experts say the new violence only shows that Islamist terror groups are getting desperate due to increased attacks on them on the Afghan-Pakistan border and are stepping up attacks in the hinterland to increase the spread of the conflict.





The Marriott Hotel attack was the worst suicide bombing incident in the capital. The Interior Ministry said, the truck was packed with 600 kg of explosives including artillery shells, mortar bombs and shrapnels. The blast left a crater 24 feet and 59 feet wide.



A five-minute CCTV footage made public by Rehman Malik on Sept. 21 shows the dumper truck packed with bricks turning into the well-lit security barrier at the main gate of the hotel and trying to gain entry. Experts studying the footage said, the driver wanted to drive the truck into the lobby but when not allowed by the security staff, he detonated it. If he had been allowed to drive into the lobby, it would have been disastrous. Fifty three people were killed in the blast including the Czech Ambassador to Pakistan and his Vietnamese partner as well as two Americans. The Czech Ambassador, Lo Zdarek, 47, was only a month into his new posting and was staying temporarily at the Marriott Hotel when it was hit by the massive truck-bomb.



The attack was staged hours after the new President, Asif Ali Zardari, made his first address to Parliament, a few hundred metres from the hotel calling for terrorism to be rooted out. Zardari later called the bombing cowardly. “This is an epidemic, a cancer in Pakistan which we will root out”, he said in a televised address. “They want to destabilize the country. They want to destabilize democracy. They want to destroy the country economically”, Prime Minister Gilani said.



Security forces have arrested three men on suspicion of their involvement in the biggest-ever bombing in the strife-torn country. Among those arrested was Qari Mohammed Ali, Imam of the main Jamia mosque in Kharian. Security forces have launched a massive manhunt in the capital as well as adjoining provinces to trace militant cells responsible for the carnage. Investigators are looking into the possibilities that the bombers constructed the 600-kg bomb in a safe house in Islamabad itself, as transporting such a heavy bomb load could not pass the numerous checks on the highway leading to the capital.



A little known Islamic group, calling itself Fedayeen Islam [Partisans of Islam] claimed responsibility and issued several demands including for Pakistan to stop cooperation with the United States. But, the security agencies in Pakistan believe the Al-Qaeda or the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which was banned by the Government recently and which has covert links with the Al-Qaeda was responsible. They say the suicide attack bears all the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda or its affiliate. US and Pakistan intelligence officials said, “The sophistication of the blast shows it is the work of Al-Qaeda.” “There was a lot of celebration among the lower ranks of Al-Qaeda”, a senior Pak intelligence officer said.



There are many militant groups operating in Pakistan. All of them are anti-US and they all, to a large degree, share the Al-Qaeda’s world view. The Al-Qaeda’s strategic objective, according to senior Government officials, is the destabilization of Pakistan. Until former President and Army Chief Pervez Musharraf sided with the US in a global war on terrorism after the Al-Qaeda’s attacks on September 11, 2001, Pakistan’s military regarded some groups operating in India and Afghanistan as covert assets. But, after Musharraf’s foreign policy U-turn, many jihadi groups, egged on by the Al-Qaeda, turned against the Pakistani State. There has been speculation in the media that Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of an Al-Qaeda linked group called Harkat-ul-Jehadul Islami, could be involved in the bombing.



Earlier, an Al-Qaeda video, released to mark the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US, included a call for militants in Pakistan to step up their fight. According to DAILY TIMES, the Al-Qaeda is well-entrenched in Islamabad and “does not need sleeper cells.” The terrorist outfit has around 8000 foreigners in Pakistan ready to lay down their lives as combatants or suicide bombers because they are uprooted and ready to abandon their life, the paper said.



Political observers in Islamabad say now the apologists of jihadi violence will find it difficult to argue, as they had been doing so far, that Pakistan’s drive against terrorism is an extension of the US war against the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Looking at the situation prevailing today, it is actually Pakistan’s war which it has to win before it is turned into another Afghanistan or Iraq by the forces of destruction, misusing the name of religion.





Afghan envoy in Pak kidnapped

In another daring act, some armed men kidnapped Afghanistan’s Ambassador-designate to Pakistan, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, near Peshawar on Sept. 22 after gunning down his driver. Farahi, who was a Consul General of Afghanistan in Peshawar, had been recently named Ambassador in Islamabad and was yet to take up his post. Farahi’s car was ambushed near his private residence in Peshawar’s suburban locality, Hyatabad, by a group travelling in a Pajero van. When driver did not stop the car, they sprayed bullets killing him and dragged the envoy out of the car and sped away towards the adjacent Khyber Agency bordering Afghanistan. No group has claimed responsibility but police believe some militants might have kidnapped the envoy to pressurize the Government to accept their demands.



In another incident, at least two soldiers and a teenage girl were killed and more than 15 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a checkpost in a high security zone in Pakistan’s southwestern Quetta city on Sept. 24. Meanwhile, backed by helicopter gunships and artillery guns, Pakistani troops killed more than 50 militants in a two-day offensive near the restive city of Peshawar.



Heading for diplomatic turmoil

As a result of the attack on the Marriott Hotel and now the kidnapping of the Afghanistan Ambassador-designate, Pakistan is heading for diplomatic turmoil. The United Kingdom has already reacted to the incidents – British Airways has halted its flights to the country while an IMF team went back without completing an economic review. Britain has also closed its visa application centre in Islamabad.



Zardari-Bush meeting

Bush pledged continued support to Islamabad’s fight against Al-Qaeda terrorism when the Presidents of Pakistan and the US met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York. President Bush and President Zardari discussed strengthening bilateral relationship with the US leader acknowledging Pakistan’s sovereignty and pledging continued support for the country in the economic and security fields. Bush said Pakistan was an important ally.



While thanking Bush for US support for the restoration of democracy, he is reported to have put on record his opposition to US drones and gunship helicopters violating the Pakistani air space frequently in pursuit of the militants without Pak permission, and the orders issued by Bush to his special forces in Afghanistan to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan if they have actionable intelligence reports about the militants hiding at a particular place.



The DAWN, a Pak English daily, reported that while Bush noted Zardari’s concerns over the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by American forces, he made no commitment nor did he give any direct assurance that US troops would not violate it again.