Pakistan probes Taliban link to Marriott bombing

ISLAMABAD, Saturday (AFP) - Investigators probing a suicide blast at a top hotel in Pakistan's capital said today they were looking at possible links to pro-Taliban extremists fighting government forces near the Afghan border.

Police said they were examining the head, a leg and an arm of the bomber who detonated explosives strapped to his body when he was prevented from entering the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Friday, killing a security guard.

Pakistani army soldiers patrol the streets a day after a suicide blast outside the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.AFP

"Experts are examining the few remains of the bomber's body in a bid to identify him," said the interior ministry crisis management chief Brigadier Javed Cheema.

Officials said a sketch of the bomber could not be prepared as no witnesses had so far come forward, nor had hotel security cameras filmed the attacker.

Interior ministry officials said no group had yet claimed responsibility for the attack."We suspect (the attack) could be by militants opposed to the government's drive against Taliban elements in the tribal regions," a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

The official said the bomber appeared to be ill-trained and poorly briefed, which suggested he was from the northwestern tribal belt rather than affiliated to better-funded sectarian groups.

"The door where he tried to enter is locked from inside and there is security present in front of it. Even if the guard had not stopped him, it would not have been possible for the bomber to enter the premises," the official said.

The pattern of the bombing closely resembled suicide bombings in Afghanistan, where scores of such attacks last year blamed on the Taliban did not cause widespread damage and killed mostly the bombers, he added.

President Pervez Musharraf condemned the suicide attack and said it would not affect the "unwavering commitment" of the government to root out terrorism and extremism from the country.

Pakistan is under pressure to curb Taliban activity in its lawless tribal zone bordering Afghanistan. Afghanistan says the Taliban uses the area to recruit and train fighters for cross-border attacks on Afghan, NATO-led and US forces.

Kabul has also accused the Pakistani government and intelligence services of backing the insurgency, which claimed around 4,000 lives in 2006, the deadliest year since US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.

Pakistan denies the charges. It says it has deployed 80,000 troops in the tribal region to hunt down the militants, with nearly 1,000 insurgents and 700 soldiers killed in the fighting since 2002.

Meanwhile, the authorities placed major cities, including Karachi and Peshawar, on high alert after the Marriott blast, and the US and Britain warned their nationals to exercise caution.

The attack happened hours before a Republic Day function at the hotel hosted by the high commission of neighbouring India.
which is loathed by Pakistani radicals because of a dispute over the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal told the ceremony, which was held despite the bombing, that the attack was evidence that terrorism knew no boundaries. "There has been speculation about what might and might not be the target of this attack but what it establishes really is that it (terrorism) has no borders and it is a common enemy," he said. "We must fight this common menace together in order to defeat it", Pal said.