PAKISTAN: Residents in Peshawar in shock after militants attack hotel popular with foreigners

Record ID: 356104

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Residents in Peshawar in shock after militants attack hotel popular with foreigners
  • Date: 11th June 2009
  • Summary: NEWSPAPER HEADLINE SAYING: "TERROR STRIKES PESHAWAR"
  • Embargoed: 26th June 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAD7LF6ICFLBH8Y5L1L4D6X8KUT
  • Story Text: Security was tight in Peshawar on Wednesday (June 10) around the Pearl Continental hotel where militants had struck the previous night.
    Militants attacked the Pearl Continental hotel, popular with foreigners, in the Pakistani city of Peshawar with guns and a truck bomb on Tuesday (June 9), killing five people including a U.N. worker, authorities said.
    Militants shot their way through a security post at the gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar and a suspected suicide bomber set off the truck-bomb in front of the lobby, security officials said.
    "We were offering our prayers when firing started, and everybody began shouting: 'the terrorists are here'. Then all of a sudden there was a loud blast," taxi driver Jameel Shah told Reuters Television.
    The hotel's windows were shattered and dozens of cars were destroyed.
    Police said the bomb contained 500 kg (1,100 lb) of explosives, a similar size to a suicide truck bomb at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September that killed 55 people.
    Stunned foreigners, some injured, were seen checking out of the hotel.
    Top city administrator Sahibzada Anis said five people had been killed, among them a U.N. refugee agency worker. Police said the man was Serbian.
    About 70 people were wounded among them a German woman working for the U.N. children's fund. A British man and a Nigerian man were also wounded, Anis said.
    The United Nations is heavily involved in providing relief for more than 2.5 million people displaced by the fighting in Swat and elsewhere in the northwest.
    About a dozen U.N. staff were staying at the hotel and some had been wounded but there had been no report of any fatality, a U.N. official said.
    "The government can safeguard the people. If it can fight against India and other countries, it can easily defeat a handful of terrorists. This is just a conspiracy in connivance with America," said college student Kaleem Ullah.
    Taliban militants stepped up bomb attacks after the military launched an offensive in the former tourist valley of Swat and neighbouring districts northwest of the capital in April.
    There was no claim of responsibility but the Taliban have warned of attacks in response to the offensive in Swat.
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