Death toll rises in Peshawar luxury hotel suicide blast
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Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent, and Times Online
The death toll from a suicide attack on a luxury hotel in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar has risen to 16 with at least 57 injured, including a British aid worker.
Officials said that two foreigners were among those killed when suspected Islamic militants stormed the Pearl Continental hotel, which is frequented by aid workers.
It was the latest in a series of attacks on Pakistani cities that officials say are revenge for a military offensive against the Taleban in the northwestern region of Swat.
The militants drove through the main gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in a pick-up truck, spraying security guards with bullets before ramming their vehicle into the building and detonating it. “It was a suicide attack,” Sefwat Ghayur, the city police chief, said.
Five more bodies were recovered from the debris early this morning, he added, confirming that the total now stood at 16.
Abdul Ghafoor Afridi, a senor police official in Peshawar, warned that the death toll was expected to rise.
"The number of casualties could rise, as we fear that some people are still trapped under the debris. One portion of the hotel was totally destroyed," he said.
"Three people, including a manager of the hotel, are missing and we fear they are under the debris."
Sahibzada Anis, Unicef's Peshawar district co-ordination officer, said that one of the agency's staff, Perseveranda So, 52, from the Philippines, was killed. A Briton, a Somali and a German who were working for Unicef were wounded.
Alexsander Vorkapic, 44, a Serbian computer specialist who worked for the UNHCR, was also killed, the UN confirmed.
The injured Briton is in hospital but the Foreign Office could not give any information on his condition. A spokesman said: "We can confirm that one British man has been injured. He is in hospital. We are offering consular assistance."
He added: "The UK condemns unreservedly all such acts of indiscriminate terrorism."
Police said that the vehicle had been able to bypass security because it appeared to be delivering hotel supplies. Mr Afridi said that there were at least two attackers, and they were wearing security guard uniforms. Witnesses described a large explosion followed by a fire that gutted the hotel, leaving a deep crater outside the four-storey building in the high-security Khyber Road area.
Television footage showed ambulances and police cars outside the hotel, which is popular with politicians, officials and business people, as well as foreign aid workers, journalists and diplomats. US officials said that the State Department had planned to buy or lease offices in the hotel for a new American consulate.
Police estimated that more than 1,100lb (500kg) of explosive material was used in the bomb. Rows of balconies appeared to have been ripped off the face of the hotel. A clutch of UN vehicles were among dozens of charred cars parked outside.
Hotel guests stumbled among twisted metal, with rubble strewn among the manicured lawns overlooking the historic Bala Hisar Fort and the Peshawar golf course.
Ghulam Ahmed, a hotel employee, described the explosion. “I was sitting in the eastern side of the hotel building and suddenly there was a huge blast which tumbled my chair and I fell on the ground. As I rose from the ground I saw flames and smoke,” he said.
The attack echoed a similar suicide bombing on the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September last year. Sixty people died in that attack.
Yesterday’s suicide bombing was the seventh deadly attack in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province, in a month and one of more than a dozen that the Taleban have carried out since the Pakistani army launched an offensive in Swat and neighbouring districts in April.
Pakistani troops, backed by two helicopters, came to the help of a pro-government militia fighting the Taleban in a northwestern district yesterday, killing about 25 militants.
Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said on Monday that public opinion was increasingly on the Pakistani Government’s side.
Officials said that two foreigners were among those killed when suspected Islamic militants stormed the Pearl Continental hotel, which is frequented by aid workers.
It was the latest in a series of attacks on Pakistani cities that officials say are revenge for a military offensive against the Taleban in the northwestern region of Swat.
The militants drove through the main gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in a pick-up truck, spraying security guards with bullets before ramming their vehicle into the building and detonating it. “It was a suicide attack,” Sefwat Ghayur, the city police chief, said.
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Abdul Ghafoor Afridi, a senor police official in Peshawar, warned that the death toll was expected to rise.
"The number of casualties could rise, as we fear that some people are still trapped under the debris. One portion of the hotel was totally destroyed," he said.
"Three people, including a manager of the hotel, are missing and we fear they are under the debris."
Sahibzada Anis, Unicef's Peshawar district co-ordination officer, said that one of the agency's staff, Perseveranda So, 52, from the Philippines, was killed. A Briton, a Somali and a German who were working for Unicef were wounded.
Alexsander Vorkapic, 44, a Serbian computer specialist who worked for the UNHCR, was also killed, the UN confirmed.
The injured Briton is in hospital but the Foreign Office could not give any information on his condition. A spokesman said: "We can confirm that one British man has been injured. He is in hospital. We are offering consular assistance."
He added: "The UK condemns unreservedly all such acts of indiscriminate terrorism."
Police said that the vehicle had been able to bypass security because it appeared to be delivering hotel supplies. Mr Afridi said that there were at least two attackers, and they were wearing security guard uniforms. Witnesses described a large explosion followed by a fire that gutted the hotel, leaving a deep crater outside the four-storey building in the high-security Khyber Road area.
Television footage showed ambulances and police cars outside the hotel, which is popular with politicians, officials and business people, as well as foreign aid workers, journalists and diplomats. US officials said that the State Department had planned to buy or lease offices in the hotel for a new American consulate.
Police estimated that more than 1,100lb (500kg) of explosive material was used in the bomb. Rows of balconies appeared to have been ripped off the face of the hotel. A clutch of UN vehicles were among dozens of charred cars parked outside.
Hotel guests stumbled among twisted metal, with rubble strewn among the manicured lawns overlooking the historic Bala Hisar Fort and the Peshawar golf course.
Ghulam Ahmed, a hotel employee, described the explosion. “I was sitting in the eastern side of the hotel building and suddenly there was a huge blast which tumbled my chair and I fell on the ground. As I rose from the ground I saw flames and smoke,” he said.
The attack echoed a similar suicide bombing on the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September last year. Sixty people died in that attack.
Yesterday’s suicide bombing was the seventh deadly attack in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province, in a month and one of more than a dozen that the Taleban have carried out since the Pakistani army launched an offensive in Swat and neighbouring districts in April.
Pakistani troops, backed by two helicopters, came to the help of a pro-government militia fighting the Taleban in a northwestern district yesterday, killing about 25 militants.
Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said on Monday that public opinion was increasingly on the Pakistani Government’s side.
mariott hotel blast
NWFP
pakistani taliban
pearl continental hotel
peshawar blasts
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tehreek e taleban
UNHCR
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