Pakistan: Another Terrorist attack, Dozens killed in Marriott hotel, Islamabad
A bomb attack has hit the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital,
The BBC's Barbara Plett who is at the scene says the blast created a 20ft (6m) deep crater, and destroyed the entire front section of the hotel.
She says the building is engulfed in flames, and rescue workers are carrying out bloodied victims and bodies.
Police say the blast occurred as a lorry approached the hotel and they suspect it was a suicide attack.
Police estimate that the blast was caused by more than a tonne of explosives. They are warning that the hotel could collapse.
Heavy security
Our correspondent says that the centre of the blast was at the front of the building close to the area where security checks are carried out.
I don't understand what it was, but it was like the world is finished
Hotel employee Mohammad Sultan
She says that about two-thirds of the 290-room hotel is on fire, and the wounded and dead are still being brought out, on stretchers or wrapped in sheets.
She says the emergency services have been unable to reach the upper floors of the hotel, where more people are feared to be trapped.
A hotel employee, Mohammad Sultan, said he was in the reception when something exploded, forcing him to the ground.
"I don't understand what it was, but it was like the world is finished," he told the Associated Press news agency.
There are reports that the explosion brought down the ceiling of the banquet hall, where some 300 people were sharing a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
The Marriott is the most prestigious hotel in the capital, and is located near government buildings and diplomatic missions.
Security there is tight, with guests and vehicles subject to checks.
It is popular with foreigners visiting
Last year a suicide bomber killed himself and one other in an attack at the hotel.
Insurgency
The bomb attack comes just hours after
In his first speech to MPs since he replaced Pervez Musharraf in August, he vowed instead to "root out terrorism and extremism wherever and whenever they may rear their ugly heads".
He was speaking in
In recent months,
Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants based in
Militants have also carried out waves of attacks in
Just over a year ago, Pakistani army commandos stormed
The operation brought an end to the bloody siege. But Islamist militants responded with a wave of suicide bombings around the country that killed around 1,000 people.
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Bomb rocks
20 Sep 2008, 2113 hrs IST,AGENCIES
People carry an injured person after a bomb exploded outside the Marriott Hotel in
More Pictures
"A car laden with explosives rammed the gate at the Marriott and so far we have brought out 40 dead bodies, but the number could well be higher," police chief Asghar Raza Gardazi said.
The hotel was badly damaged and caught fire after the blast, which destroyed dozens of cars outside and shattered windows and damaged buildings hundreds of metres (yards) away.
Hours before the blast President Asif Ali Zardari, making his first address to parliament, several hundred metres to the east of the hotel, said terrorism had to be rooted out.
Police at the scene said 20 bodies had been taken away and people were still trapped inside. A crane was brought in to try to get people out.
Fire began in at least two places in the building and spread to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located at the foot of the Margalla hills in the city centre. There was a large crater in the road by the hotel's heavy security barriers.
The street was littered with debris and broken branches from roadside trees and acrid smoke drifted in the air.
The blast brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan, Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, was among them. "We just ran for cover, I could see a lot of injured people lying around me," Gul said.
The hotel, popular with foreigners, has been bombed twice before but the Saturday evening blast was the most serious in the Pakistani capital since the country joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy in late 2001.
Al Qaida-linked militants based in sanctuaries in the Afghan border have launched a bloody campaign of bomb attacks in retaliation for offensives by the security forces.
Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is close to the
In his address to parliament, he said
Zardari won a presidential election this month to replace firm US ally Pervez Musharraf who stepped down in August under threat of impeachment. Zardari is close to the
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Deadly blast targets Marriott Hotel in
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
At least 34 killed, 200 hurt in car bomb attack on Marriott Hotel, police say
Reporter at the scene says he saw more than 50 bodies
Hotel set on fire by gas leak following massive blast
New President Asif Ali Zardari had addressed Parliament hours earlier
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A car bomb detonated Saturday night in the heart of Islamabad, killing at least 34 people, police said, and shattering windows more than two miles away.
At least 200 people were injured in the attack in
Rescuers pulled bloodied victims from vehicles, and other casualties could be seen in the street. Officials predicted the casualty tolls would rise.
GEO TV's Hamid Mir, who was at the explosion site, said he saw at least 52 bodies. Most of the dead appeared to be drivers who were waiting with their cars outside the hotel, and hotel staff -- most of them security guards.
Mir said a witness saw the gates of the hotel rammed open by a small car, followed by an explosive-laden truck that detonated.
The blast caused a natural gas leak that set the top floor of the five-story, 258-room Marriott Hotel on fire. The blaze quickly engulfed the entire structure. More than a dozen cars were reduced to twisted steel. Watch firefighters battle fire at hotel »
Police described the 8 p.m. blast as a car bomb.
Nearby trees were felled. Hours before, newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari addressed a joint session of Parliament and promised to root out terrorism.
Video showed a deep crater in the pavement where the bomb is thought to have detonated.
At the CNN bureau, more than two miles from the hotel, the explosion sounded like it went off just outside the office, said CNN's Reza Sayah, who was at his desk at the time.
"All of a sudden, the bureau roared and rumbled," he said. "It was a roaring rumble that would not stop. Seconds later, the windows shattered."
The Marriott, a Western brand-name hotel, has been the site of attacks in the past.
Located near the diplomatic section of the city and heavily guarded by police and military, the facility is popular among tourists. Any car entering the facility is searched, its underside scrutinized for bombs, before it is allowed to pass through heavy steel gates.
Bomb rocks
20 Sep 2008, 2113 hrs IST, AGENCIES
People carry an injured person after a bomb exploded outside the Marriott Hotel in
"A car laden with explosives rammed the gate at the Marriott and so far we have brought out 40 dead bodies, but the number could well be higher," police chief Asghar Raza Gardazi said.
The hotel was badly damaged and caught fire after the blast, which destroyed dozens of cars outside and shattered windows and damaged buildings hundreds of metres (yards) away.
Hours before the blast President Asif Ali Zardari, making his first address to parliament, several hundred metres to the east of the hotel, said terrorism had to be rooted out.
Police at the scene said 20 bodies had been taken away and people were still trapped inside. A crane was brought in to try to get people out.
Fire began in at least two places in the building and spread to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located at the foot of the Margalla hills in the city centre. There was a large crater in the road by the hotel's heavy security barriers.
The street was littered with debris and broken branches from roadside trees and acrid smoke drifted in the air.
The blast brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan, Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, was among them. "We just ran for cover, I could see a lot of injured people lying around me," Gul said.
The hotel, popular with foreigners, has been bombed twice before but the Saturday evening blast was the most serious in the Pakistani capital since the country joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy in late 2001.
Al Qaida-linked militants based in sanctuaries in the Afghan border have launched a bloody campaign of bomb attacks in retaliation for offensives by the security forces.
Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is close to the
In his address to parliament, he said
Zardari won a presidential election this month to replace firm US ally Pervez Musharraf who stepped down in August under threat of impeachment. Zardari is close to the
URL: https://newageislam.com/war-terror/pakistan-another-terrorist-attack,-dozens/d/762