“Huge Bomb” Targeting Foreigners Detonates Inside 5-Star Pakistan Hotel
Posted June 9, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
What officials are calling a “huge bomb” detonated in the middle of a luxury five star hotel in Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people and leaving more than 70 others wounded.
The blast went off at the Pearl Continental Hotel in the city of Peshawar in the northwestern part of the country. Unconfirmed reports say foreign guests are among the injured, but there’s no word if any Canadians were staying there.
Witnesses saw several men run into the building right before the blast, with officials signifying it was a suicide attack. The explosion was followed by scenes of utter chaos, as bleeding and wounded people ran out into the street, and heavily armed police swarmed into the area.
There is little left of the structure.
The nation has been undergoing a series of terror attacks in the past few months, following an offensive directed against the Taliban in the troubled Swat Valley. Officials believe this is the militants’ latest form of promised revenge, and it’s one of the biggest blasts yet.
The attacks have led to a series of back and forth killings. On Saturday a mob of hundreds of Pakistani villagers came together and killed 14 suspected Taliban insurgents in the Upper Dir district, after a suicide bomber destroyed a local mosque, taking 38 lives.
The war for the hearts and minds of Pakistan residents has been ongoing for months, with some siding with the strictly religious group and others warning their extremism has put the country on the road to a civil war.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the hotel blast but the Taliban has vowed a wave of attacks as attempts to oust them continue. An attack in Lahore last month claimed 28 lives.
Photo credit: Tariq Mahmood/AFP/Getty Images
