Evidence sought in hotel bombing
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Investigators searched a wrecked luxury hotel in northwestern Pakistan for evidence today after a bold suicide bombing killed 11 people, including aid workers, in what the U.N. condemned as a "heinous terrorist attack."
Elsewhere in the volatile region, security forces killed 70 suspected militants in an area close to two major Taliban tribal strongholds, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the late Tuesday bombing of the Peshawar Pearl Continental, but the blast followed Taliban threats to carry out major attacks in large cities to avenge an army offensive against insurgents in the nearby Swat Valley.
At least three suicide attackers shot their way past guards and set off the explosion outside the hotel, a favorite spot for foreigners and well-off Pakistanis and a site that the U.S. was considering for its consulate.
The attack reduced a section of the hotel to concrete rubble and twisted steel and left a huge crater in a parking lot. Senior police official Safwat Ghayur said counterterrorism experts, police and intelligence agents were combing the rubble for clues Wednesday.
The Pearl Continental, affectionately called the "PC" by Pakistanis, is the ritziest hotel in the rugged frontier city of 2.2 million.
Security camera footage show the attackers in two vehicles: a white sedan and a small truck.
The vehicles pull up to a guard post outside the hotel, with the car in front. A puff of smoke appears near the car window. A guard collapses, apparently shot. The vehicles move into the hotel compound. A flash and eruption of dust follow seconds later.
The truck was carrying more than half a ton of explosives, senior police officer Shafqatullah Malik estimated.
The chaotic scene echoed a bombing last year at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel that killed more than 50 people.
