pakistan marriot bombing

marriot hotel bomb crater

September 23, 2008

The Deadly Blast in Islamabad
Why was the Marriott Targeted?
By TARIQ ALI

The deadly blast in Islamabad was a revenge attack for what has been going on over the past few weeks in the badlands of the North-West Frontier. It highlighted the crisis confronting the new government in the wake of intensified US strikes in the tribal areas on the Afghan border.

Hellfire missiles, drones, special operation raids inside Pakistan and the resulting deaths of innocents have fuelled Pashtun nationalism. It is this spillage from the war in Afghanistan that is now destabilizing Pakistan.

The de facto prime minister of the country, an unelected crony of President Zardari and now his chief adviser, Rehman Malik, said, "our enemies don't want to see democracy flourishing in the country". This was rich coming from him, but in reality it has little to do with all that. It is the consequence of a supposedly "good war" in Afghanistan that has now gone badly wrong. The director of US National Intelligence, Michael McConnell, admits as much, saying the Afghan leadership must deal with the "endemic corruption and pervasive poppy cultivation and drug trafficking" that is to blame for the rise of the neo-Taliban.

The majority of Pakistanis are opposed to the US presence in the region, viewing it as the most serious threat to peace. Why, then, has the US decided to destabilize a crucial ally? Within Pakistan, some analysts argue this is a carefully coordinated move to weaken the Pakistani state by creating a crisis that extends way beyond the frontier with Afghanistan. Its ultimate aim, they claim, would be the extraction of the Pakistani military's nuclear fangs. If this were the case, it would imply Washington was determined to break up Pakistan, since the country would not survive a disaster on that scale.

In my view, however, the expansion of the war relates far more to the Bush administration's disastrous occupation in Afghanistan. It is hardly a secret that President Karzai's regime is becoming more isolated each passing day, as Taliban guerrillas move ever closer to Kabul.
When in doubt, escalate the war, is an old imperial motto. The strikes against Pakistan represent - like the decisions of President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, to bomb and then invade Cambodia - a desperate bid to salvage a war that was never good, but has now gone badly wrong.

It is true that those resisting the Nato occupation cross the Pakistan-Afghan border with ease. However, the US has often engaged in quiet negotiations with them. Several feelers have been put out to the Taliban in Pakistan, while US intelligence experts regularly check into the Serena hotel in Swat to meet Maulana Fazlullah, a local pro-Taliban leader.

Pashtuns in Peshawar, hitherto regarded as secular liberals, told the BBC only last week that they had lost all faith in the west. The decision to violate the country's sovereignty at will had sent them in the direction of the insurgents.

While there is much grieving for the Marriott hotel casualties, some ask why the lives of those killed by Predator drones or missile attacks are considered to be of less value. In recent weeks almost 100 innocent people have died in this fashion. No outrage and global media coverage for them.

Why was the Marriot targeted? Two explanations have surfaced in the media. The first is that there was a planned dinner for the president and his cabinet there that night, which was cancelled at the last moment.

The second, reported in the respected Pakistani English-language newspaper, Dawn, is that "a top secret operation of the US Marines [was] going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked". According to the paper: "Well-equipped security officers from the US embassy were seen on the spot soon after the explosions. However, they left the scene shortly afterwards."

The country's largest newspaper, the News, also reported on Sunday that witnesses had seen US embassy steel boxes being carried into the Marriott at night on September 17. According to the paper, the steel boxes were permitted to circumvent security scanners stationed at the hotel entrance.

Mumtaz Alam, a member of parliament, witnessed this. He wanted to leave the hotel but, owing to the heavy security, he was not permitted to leave at the time and is threatening to raise the issue in parliament.

These may be the motivations for this particular attack, but behind it all is the shadow of an expanding war.

Tariq Ali's latest book is 'The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power.'




Because You'll Believe Anything: Unknown Terrorist Group Claims Responsibility For Marriot Bombing
Winter Patriot




September 23, 2008

In a phone call to an Islamabad TV station, "a group calling itself Fedayeen-i-Islam" has claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad, according to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.

Fedayeen-i-Islam is "a little-known group" according to Bloomberg. But just how little-known?

Dawn's report quotes "a senior [Pakistani] government official" as saying:


"We have not heard the name of the organisation but we are trying to locate its network."

Amazing.

Ever since Saturday night's bombing the media have been wrestling with the big question: "Why did al Qaeda do this?"

But now they have to deal with a different question: "How is Fedayeen-i-Islam related to al Qaeda?"

It goes without saying that Fedayeen-i-Islam must be a violent radical Islamofascist group and that they must have bombed the hotel. And they must have been assisted, if not directed, by al Qaeda, and probably the Taliban as well. After all, who else but the world's most violent Islamic terrorists could make an anonymous phone call to a TV station?

It's nice to know the big questions are looked after. That gives us leeway -- here in the frozen corners of the blogosphere -- to ask meaningless little insignificant questions, like:

What were US Marines doing in the Marriot Hotel just before the attack?

According to Pakistan Daily, after the blast, a fire broke out on the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel.

Why these floors and not the others? The official explanation didn't make much sense. On the other hand, according to an eyewitness report from a member of Pakistan's Parliament, a group of US Marines had recently visited the hotel, while Admiral Mike Mullen was there.

According to the eyewitness, all access to the hotel was closed off while the Marines unloaded steel boxes from a white US Embassy truck, bypassed both Pakistani and hotel security, and took these boxes directly to the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel -- just where the fires mysteriously broke out.

Were the Marines loading the building with incendiaries? It certainly wouldn't be the first time a building was primed by insiders for a subsequent "terrorist attack".

I wasn't kidding in my prior post when I called the Marriot bombing "Pakistan's 9/11". But I didn't explain myself particularly well, either.

There's a long list of similarities between the two attacks, including the rush by both politicians and the media to cast the event as "an attack on democracy", when in both cases the attacks came at critical times for governments which falsely claimed to have been legitimately elected.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari can now claim to be in an all-out war against radical Islamic terrorists, and he may even be able to build up enough "political capital" to drag his nation in a direction in which it doesn't wish to go.

As usual, the attack has been followed by a barrage of media nonsense, such as a report from the Financial Times which says men with ties to al Qaeda have been arrested in Pakistan in connection with the Marriot bombing.

Pakistani investigators yesterday said they had found new evidence of al-Qaeda's involvement in the suicide truck bombing of Islamabad's Marriott hotel. Intelligence officials also reported the arrest of up to five militants in connection with planning attacks [...]

According to an intelligence official, two of the five arrested men "came with conclusive evidence of close links to al-Qaeda. Their connection to the militant group is beyond any doubt."

Let's see now: The police are arresting members of one group while another group claims responsibility. Does this not undermine the claims of the police?

If you were tripped up by this little bit of logic, you must be a Democrat, since according to the Republicans, the Democrats have failed to learn the lessons of September 11th, 2001.

And the primary lesson from September 11th, of course, is that logic, evidence, and science are all past their prime.

Therefore, we don't use forensic evidence to solve crimes anymore; we label the crimes acts of war, destroy the forensic evidence, and attack defenseless countries instead. For revenge. Or something.

If you believe that this massive bombing attack was perpetrated by a Pakistani terrorist group that the Pakistani government has never even heard of, then it's not much of a stretch to believe that this hitherto-unknown group must have hitherto-unknown ties to al Qaeda, as well.

As the AP reported (via the Toronto Star):

Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said "all roads lead to FATA" in major Pakistani suicide attacks – referring to Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where U.S. officials fear Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda No.2 Ayman al-Zawahri are hiding.


And there you have it; it doesn't matter who did it; it doesn't matter who claimed responsibility; it doesn't matter why Marines were acting mysteriously (and evading security) in the building shortly before it was attacked; it doesn't matter what evidence is collected during the investigation; it doesn't even matter whether there is an investigation.

What matters is that the media and the politicians have already decided who's going to be blamed, and who's going to pay the price. And once again -- just like 9/11 -- it won't be the perpetrators.

September 24, 2008, 15:21 Russia Today

NATO accused of sheltering Afghan heroin trade

Since NATO forces invaded Afghanistan, the production of heroin in the country increased by 2.5 times and Afghanistan has become the world leader in heroin production. Eighteen tonnes of heroin from Afghanistan ends up in Russia each year.

Russia at war with heroin

As a result of this war Russia has become one of the main markets for Afghan opiates, involuntary acknowledged Russian Federal Drugs Control Service, and drug traffickers are financing terrorist organizations worldwide, says the Interfax news agency.

The Director of FDCS, Viktor Ivanov, tolds journalists that a drug addict's life is limited to 5-7 years from the moment he becomes one.

He also said that those 400,000 drug addicts officially registered in Russia in 2001 are already dead and the number of new ones is growing by 30% every year. That is why the losses should be regarded as Russia's direct casualties in the war that NATO wages on Afghanistan.

"The problem of Afghan opiates has a geopolitical character," stressed Ivanov.

While in Russia up to 90% of drug addicts depend on Afghan opiates, in Europe this volume is up to 10%.

Strategic drug trafficking

The head of the FDCS insists that it is not just the Taliban that manages the heroin traffic but the Afghan governmental and security services' officials known by name.

The fact that dozens of high-ranking Afghan officials are known to be involved in the drug industry means that corrupted authorities work hand in hand with the Taliban terrorist movement, which in turn means that NATO military forces support the current Afghan regime.

Within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council Russia is financing and conducting special training for Afghan police squads dealing with drug trafficking. Unfortunately, for more than a year not a single Afghan policeman came to Russia for training which is no wonder considering the fact that all actions of Afghanistan's security services should be sanctioned by the U.S.

What Was Mysterious Activity Going on in the Marriott Hotel Islamabad by United States Marines

Sunday, 21 September 2008 12:18 www.daily.pk

Marriott Hotel has now become a ghost house which was yesterday the most beautiful and prestigious hotels in the Islamabad. While the condemnation of the blasts and the deaths and the loss of property is going on from all the quarters, some intriguing news is also pouring in.

After the blast, mysteriously fire was started at the fourth and fifth floors. It was said that this fire was the result of gas pipeline burst running through the hotel. The million dollar question is that was the gas pipeline not running through the other floors? Why the fire broke out from the fourth and fifth flours? That is the question which perhaps holds the key to the mystery as why the hotel was targeted yesterday, in which more than 60 people died including many foreigners.

Though it would never get confirmed but the fire on the fifth and fourth floor of the hotel broke out because those flours were housing the mysterious steel boxes under the heavy guard of United States marines and no one including the Pakistani security forces and the security men of the hotel were allowed to go near with the them. These boxes were shifted inside the hotel when the Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.

It is said that one member of parliament Mumtaz Alam who belongs to the PPP, the ruling party was there eye witnessed the whole scene when the white truck of US embassy came to the gate of Marriot Hotel and US marines themselves unloaded the steel boxes from the trucks and shifted them to the fourth and fifth floors without passing through them the scanners at the entrance of the hotels. When the truck was there, all the entrance and the exit passage way to the hotels were closed.

And now this blast has occurred at the Marriott, while that mysterious activity was going on.

Was Marriott Hotel Islamabad an attack on US Marines and What Was Stored On Floors 4 And 5 U.S. military equipment?

Sunday, 21 September 2008 11:32 www.daily.pk

Was there a top secret and mysterious operation of the US Marines going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked on Saturday evening? No one will confirm it but circumstantial evidence is in abundance.

Witnessed by many, including a PPP MNA and his friends, a US embassy truckload of steel boxes was unloaded and shifted inside the Marriott Hotel on the same night when Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.

Both the main gates (the entrance and the exit) of the hotel were closed while no one except the US Marines were either allowed to go near the truck or get the steel boxes unloaded or shift them inside the hotel. These steel boxes were not passed through the scanners installed at the entrance of the hotel lobby and were reportedly shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the Marriott.

Besides several others, PPP MNA Mumtaz Alam Gilani and his two friends, Sajjad Chaudhry, a PPP leader, and one Bashir Nadeem, witnessed this mysterious activity to which no one other than the PPP MNA objected and protested.

A source present there told that after entertaining them with refreshments at the Nadia restaurant at midnight when Mumtaz Alam, along with his friends, was to leave the hotel, he found a white US embassy truck standing right in front of the hotel's main entrance.

Both the In-gate and the Out-gate of the hotel were closed while almost a dozen well-built US Marines in their usual fatigues were unloading the steel boxes from the truck. No one, including the hotel security men, was either allowed to go near the truck or touch the steel boxes, which were being shifted inside the hotel but without passing through the scanners.

Upon inquiry, one of the three PPP friends who was waiting for the main gates of the hotel to open to get his car in, was informed that the suspicious boxes were shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel. Mumtaz Alam was furious both at the US Marines and the hotel security not only for the delay caused to them but also for the security lapse he was witnessing.

On his protest, there was absolutely no response from the Marines and the security men he approached were found helpless. Mumtaz Alam told the hotel security official that they were going to endanger the hotel and its security. He was also heard telling his friends that he would never visit the hotel again. He also threatened to raise the issue in parliament.

One does not know whether the PPP MNA revisited the hotel after that mysterious midnight but his brother Imtiaz Alam, who is a senior journalist, was in the same hotel when the truck exploded at the main gate of the hotel. Imtiaz Alam had a lucky escape and found his way out of the hotel with great difficulty in pitch darkness.

One of the lifts he was using fell to the ground floor just after he forced the door open on the 4th floor and got out of it.

Pakistan leaders escaped Marriott bomb at last minute

Pakistan's president and prime minister were scheduled to eat at the Islamabad Marriott the night it was bombed, but changed plans at the last minute, a top official has said.

By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad
Last Updated: 3:04PM BST 22 Sep 2008

President Asif Ali Zardari (right) and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani (left) had both intended to be at the Marriott hotel Photo: EPA

A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with over half a tonne of explosives into the outer security gates of the luxury hotel on Saturday night, killing at least 53 people and wounding more than 260.

"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," interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters.

"The president and the prime minister changed the venue to the prime minister's house. The function was not held at the Marriott, thus the whole leadership was saved," Mr Malik added.

President Asif Ali Zardari only took office earlier this month after forcing out his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, who was himself subjected to several assassination attempts.

Mr Zardari's wife Benazir Bhutto was killed in a bombing last December that some of her supporters blamed on elements close to the country's secret service.

The car of prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was shot at in early September on a road near Rawalpindi.

Speculation has mounted over how the highly powerful RDX and TNT explosives were procured. Some analysts pointed to the disappearance last month of a truck of explosives manufactured at the military munitions factory at Wah.

Investigators are trying to track down an Islamabad-based al-Qaeda cell believed to have carried out the devastating bombing of the Marriott Hotel, according to security officials.

Amir Mir, a Pakistani terrorism expert, said that suspicion had fallen on a leading jihadi, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who has strong links to the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan's military intelligence establishment.

The hunt came as British Airways announced that it was suspending all flights to the beleaguered country amid security fears sparked by Saturday's attack.

Investigators said they believed the attackers constructed the massive truck bomb at a safe house in the capital, since all lorries entering the heavily-guarded city are searched at checkpoints.

Pakistan's army is in the midst of an offensive against militants in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border, while the United States has intensified attacks on militants on the Pakistani side of the border, infuriating the Pakistani army.

A security official said troops had fired at two US helicopters that intruded into Pakistani air space on Sunday night, forcing them back to Afghanistan.

Elsewhere, troops were attacking militant hideouts, a military spokesman said.

"Our security forces are engaging militants with artillery fire and targeting their hideouts," said the spokesman, Major Murad Khan.

Tensions flared in other areas of the country, as Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged fire across a de facto border dividing the disputed Kashmir region, wounding a Pakistani woman, police and security officials said.

The exchange was the latest in a spate of recent small clashes along the border, known as Line of Control, after a period of calm since a ceasefire in late 2003 and a peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals was launched in 2004.

"It was a brief exchange. Maybe a few rounds but unfortunately, a woman received a bullet in her leg," a security official, who asked not to be identified, said of the exchange in the Madarpur sector in the south of Kashmir.

Unidentified gunmen also kidnapped an Afghan diplomat after shooting dead his driver in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, police said.

Taliban denies role in hotel attack
AlJazeera.net



Sdeptember 22, 2008

A senior commander of the Taliban in Pakistan has denied that his group was responsible for a bomb attack at Islamabad's Marriott hotel, in which at least 53 people died and 270 were injured.

Baitullah Mehsud said on Monday that the Taliban had no role in Saturday's attack, Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, reported.

"Mehsud said that their group does not believe in killing so many locals in the attack," Hyder said.

"RDX was used in the attack, which is a very volatile substance. The big question is: Where did such a large amount of RDX come from? In previous attacks, militants have not used this substance."

In addition to the dozens killed, at least 270 people were injured in the attack on the hotel, a favoured place for foreigners and the wealthy elite.

British Airways announced on Monday that it was temporarily suspending flights to and from Pakistan, citing security concerns after the hotel bombing.

The airline, which offers six flights to Pakistan each week, did not face a direct security threat, but took the step out of caution, Suhail Rehman, a BA spokesman, said.

Foreign diplomatic missions and non-governmental organisations operating in Pakistan have also reviewed their security status.

Question over bomb

One of the lines of inquiry taken by Pakistani investigators is that the bomb attack was carried by an al-Qaeda cell operating in Islamabad.

They said that the attackers constructed the 600kg truck bomb at a safe house in the capital because vehicles entering the city are subject to routine searches.

"Our focus at the moment is to track down the network in Islamabad which must have facilitated the movement and construction of the bomb," a senior official said.

Video footage of the attack showed the truck failing to break down a security barrier at the entrance to the Marriott hotel.

Security guards at the five-star hotel tried to put the resulting fire with extinguishers before the full bomb detonated, devastating the complex.

Two Americans, the Czech ambassador to Pakistan and a Vietnamese woman were among those killed in Saturday's attack.

A Danish intelligence agent is still missing after the blast.

"Carrying 600 kilos of explosives over long distances and through checkpoints is not possible, so our immediate suspicion is that the bomb was loaded in Islamabad," the official said.

It is possible that the explosives used in the bomb could have been sneaked into Islamabad in small quantities from the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, he said.

Military operation

A senior Pakistani security official said on Monday that the explosives used in the bombing were like those used in two recent deadly attacks.

"We are collecting evidence. The explosives were similar to those used in the Danish embassy, which was claimed by al-Qaeda, and the attack on the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) camp in Rawalpindi last year," the official said.

An al-Qaeda leader claimed responsibility for the attack on the Danish embassy, but no group said it had targeted the ISI facility.

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, said after the Marriott attack that the government will take a tough line against fighters linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Pakistan's military is currently trying to bring under control of the country's tribal region bordering Afghanistan, an area long considered to be a safe haven for opposition fighters.