Pakistan's leaders barely escape blast
Wed, September 24 2008
The president, prime minister and military chiefs were among others invited to dinner by the speaker of the national assembly, but the venue was changed later to the prime minister’s house, barely a kilometre from the Marriott, Interior Ministry Chief Rehman Malik told reporters. He didn’t say why the venue was changed.
“The national assembly speaker had arranged a dinner for the entire leadership – for the president, prime minister and armed services chiefs – at the Marriott that day,” Malik told reporters, adding that it could have been “a great catastrophe” had the original plan remained unchanged.
“The president and the prime minister changed the venue to the prime minister’s house . . . thus the whole leadership was saved,” Malik said.
A suicide bomber tried to drive his explosives-laden lorry into the hotel, but was stopped at the entrance by security personnel, when he detonated the explosives Saturday.
The bomb – believed to have been detonated in the lorry – left a six-metre crater.
Meanwhile, seven people have been arrested in connection with the terror bombing that killed 53 including the ambassador of the Czech Republic and two U.S. soldiers. Investigators were working on clues from CCTV cameras, and samples from the blast site were sent to Britain for analysis.
“We have laboratories here but certainly we cannot match the Western standards and secondly this is being done to have more than one opinion,” one of the forensic experts at the site said.
Another expert said there were several CCTV cameras installed in the hotel that have captured the scene of the attack. Footage from a camera at the barrier clearly showed the face of the attacker who killed himself with a hand grenade.
“We have examined all these videos and may reach some conclusion about the identity of the attacker who was alone,” said the expert, who didn’t want to be identified.
He said they were also trying to identify the vehicles that were passing behind the truck of explosives. He said the experts suspect the suicide attacker might have been followed by a handler and he may have passed behind the truck to oversee the operation.
Pakistani journalist recalls night of horror at Marriott
A friend of many Indian journalists, Alam did not know then that a suicide bomber had just blown up a truck packed with one tonne of explosives outside the gates of the luxury hotel.
Numbed by fear, Alam used all his strength to force open the doors of the lift and step out on the fourth floor of the five-storey hotel that was now ablaze.
“As I stepped out of the lift, it went down with a bang,” the Lahore-based Alam told IANS, explaining how he escaped death by a whisker.
Screams filled the hotel’s rooms and corridors. Darkness set in after a power outage and the false ceiling of the hotel collapsed.
Guests and employees of the hotel were desperately trying to escape what turned out to be a night of horror that claimed at least 46 lives.
Alam joined the mad scramble to safety. He managed to find the emergency exit and was soon out of the hotel from the rear side.
A leading light of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), Alam was in Islamabad to hear President Asif Ali Zardari address the joint session of parliament.
He was one of 200 people staying in the hotel when the terror attack took place.
“This is the first time in my life that I saw death from such close quarters,” said the journalist.
Imtiaz Gul, another Pakistani journalist, was having dinner at the Marquee Restaurant in the hotel when the suicide bomber struck.
He said several people were injured, some seriously, when the false ceiling of the restaurant came crashing down.
Islamabad Marriott may have to be demolished
A suicide bomber drove a large truck full of explosives to its gates Saturday evening and detonated himself. The deafening explosion left a 30-foot deep crater in the front and the five-storey building burnt for almost two days. Only a shell remains, with all its furniture and fixtures completely destroyed.
Declaring the structure and foundation of the hotel was still solid, engineers say only the upper part of the hotel was affected by the blast. Though they ruled out the possibility of the building collapsing, they recommended the building be pulled down.
“We have suggested the structure be dismantled,” an engineer at the site said. He said the fire and heat had weakened the structure to a great extent but it was “not dangerous.”
The hotel, which opened in 1977 as Holiday Inn and joined the Marriott chain in 1988, was owned by Sadruddin Hashwani, one of Pakistan’s top businessmen. Through the years, it had hosted several international personalities and was the hub of social gatherings in the capital.
By Muhammad Najeeb
Tell us what you think
Reader comments are edited for clarity and may be selected to appear in the print version of the Asian Pacific Post.
