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All roads lead to FATA: Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Sunday that initial investigations indicated the Al Qaeda-associated Tehreek-e-Taliban, based in Pakistan’s tribal areas, carried out the deadly blast at the Marriott Hotel here, which killed at least 53 people, including the Czech Ambassador.

Two U.S. nationals and a Vietnamese woman were also among those killed in Saturday’s blast, which Rehman Malik, who functions as Interior Minister, described as the “biggest” terrorist attack in Pakistan’s history.

Rescuers found the body of the Czech envoy to Pakistan, Ivo Zdarek, in the rubble on Sunday. The envoy had arrived recently in Islamabad and was staying at the hotel.

Among the injured, over 100 of whom are still in hospital. Mr. Malik said 11 were foreigners, including four U.S. nationals, one Briton, four Saudis, one Lebanese and one Afghan.

In an address to the nation in the early hours of Sunday, President Asif Ali Zardari said the government was determined to “eliminate the cancer” of terrorism that had taken hold of Pakistan. Urging the people to turn “your grief into strength,” he said Pakistan would not be cowed down by “the cowards” who carry out such acts of terrorism.

Mr. Zardari left on Sunday morning for New York, where he is to address the United Nations General Assembly and hold meetings with President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in Lahore the real target of the attack was the National Assembly, but Mr. Malik told a press conference here that the hotel was the specific target of the well-planned attack. “They select the target that fetches them international attention. Marriott is an international chain and is well-known and you are seeing how much attention this has received in the world,” he said, but did not comment on whether the attackers chose the hotel because it was an American chain.

He said the terrorists also wanted to target the economy of the country, and described it was an attack on Pakistan’s fledgling democracy. “This attack has been carried out by the enemies of our nation and of our democracy who do not want to see this country make progress,” he said.

No arrests have been made so far and no group has yet claimed responsibility, but Mr. Malik said all the information gathered so far pointed to Pakistan’s tribal areas. “We cannot tell you who was behind the blast right now. We can do that only after investigations. But I can say that all roads go to FATA,” he said referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. “The investigations are pointing to South Waziristan, where Tehreek-Taliban is based,” he added.

He refused to comment on suggestions in the media and by some politicians that the attack was a “tit-for-tat response” for the earlier serial blasts in New Delhi.

Mr. Malik said there were similarities between this attack and the one at the Danish Embassy earlier this year. But he also said it was a departure from pervious such incidents in the kind of explosives used.

The truck was packed with 600 kg of TNT and RDX — sophisticated explosives that only militaries can access legally — along with splinters, mortars, artillery rounds and mines. Other blasts in Pakistan were caused by cruder potassium-based explosives, he said. The crater left by the truck was 24 ft deep and 59 ft across.

Along with the explosives in the truck, Mr. Malik said, was also packed aluminium powder, which according to him, helps fires spread quickly. He said this was the reason that it took so long to bring the fire under control. Rescue work was also hampered by the high temperatures of up to 400 degree Celsius inside the rooms, he added.

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