Adil Najam
There was a bomb blast in Islamabad today as a car blew up in the parking lot of the Marriott Hotel. The details are still coming in but the indications at this point are that it is a suicide bombing. According to the news flash in The News:
Islamabad police has declared the blast, which occurred in the backyard car parking of a five star hotel located in the highly sensitive area here, a dastardly suicide bombing, resulting in the death of two persons. SP Islamabad, Sikandar Hayat told that the blast occurred due to suicide bombing killing two persons and injuring five, who were shifted to the polyclinic here. Following the bombing here, security high alert has been declared in Karachi and Peshawar also. Observers told that it was the gravest nature of security breach in the highly sensitive security zone of the capital city, as the President House, Pakistan Secretariat and some other key-buildings were located nearby. Eyewitnesses told Geo that the security guard intercepted the suicide bomber trying to bang into the hotel, when he detonated the bomb and blasted himself.
According to the CNN report:
The blast at around 2:37 p.m. (0935 GMT) was just hours before a Indian High Commission function to celebrate Republic Day was due to be held at the hotel. Police cordoned off the area and sirens wailed through the downtown district, where many government buildings including parliament and the office of the president are located…
“He was on foot. The blast occurred when he tried to enter the hotel,” Chaudhry Iftikhar Ahmed, Islamabad police chief, said. A Reuters journalist saw blood and flesh scattered over the tarmac close to a side entrance, where the hotel’s night club and laundry services are located. A motorist, who declined to give his name, described hearing and feeling the explosion as he drove by.
He told Reuters: “As I was driving, I heard a huge blast at my back. The windscreen of my car shattered. When I turned round, I saw flesh scattered on the road.” The bomber’s remains were being examined by forensic experts. “The bomber appears to be in twenties. His face is not recognisable. His skull and lower body parts have been found,” retired Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of the Interior Ministry’s Crisis Management Cell, told Reuters.
Musharraf condemned the attack and vowed to continue fighting terrorism. “President Musharraf reiterated Pakistan’s unwavering commitment in the fight against extremism and terrorism and said that all out efforts be made to unmask and bring to book the perpetrators of this crime,” the official Associated Press of Pakistan quoted him as saying.
The Marriott is one of Islamabad’s main hotels, and is frequented by foreign diplomats and businessmen. The U.S. embassy barred staff from visiting the hotel after a small blast in the lobby in October, 2004…. Otherwise bomb attacks have been rare inside the capital in recent years. Security is tight and easier to enforce in the small, orderly purpose-built capital than it is in Pakistan’s larger crowded, sprawling cities.
Only last night - as I was looking at these pictures (all from Dawn) of hieghtened security because of Ashura and the banning of supposed ‘ulema’ because they might incite sectariat hatered - I was thinking how living under a cloud of constant insecurity and uncertainity has to take a toll on people’s psyche.
Even if we get ‘used’ to this insecurity, we do not really ever get ‘used’ to it. We merely take on a mask of either indiference, or cynicism, or fatalism, etc. about the state we live in. In no case is is a comfortable existence, and in every case it takes a toll on the very fabric of society, how it sees itself, and how it goes about its daily business.
Sometimes one reads of yet another such news and the resolve begins to waver. We have to find a way to live together in peace. There has to be a better way of expressing and resolving our differences? Will the violence end? How?
This very disturbing news in the Dialy Times:
Also included was this photograph of the police chasing the journalists.
The News has this more detailed report:
Its sad. Unfortunately, there is not much concept of safety & security in our country. We have illegal afghans and the north west border is pretty much open. If you have done a crime in the country, you can run and hide in what we call “azaad Illaqa”, where arms & ammunition are made locally. On top of that, we have religious fanatics. May God bless us all.
The more bombs there are, the longer army stays in power.
Let us not forget that it was our our matriculate arm-chair strategists who concocted this elexir of jihad that got shoved down the throats of ordinary citizens.
Unfortunately it is mostly the poor who are losing their lives.
By the way, spoke to someone in Islamabad a few hours ago. Seems like teh roads were closed around the hotel into the night.
How does this effect the hotel people and those planning to invest in new hotels?
[quote]
Actually, it was probably not this society. Sometimes I think that Pakistan’s “strategic” location has been much more of a curse than a blessing. Seems like we’ve been fighting proxy wars since the country’s inception.[/quote]
Eidee Man
Our society is a major part of it as oppose to our “strategic” location. We can just never manage to stay neutral. Think Switzerland, they did so, being a land locked country and surrounded by war all around them, why can’t we. I know it is a slightly unfair comparison, but still, it is doable, only if we want to. Decades of military rule, religious passion, ignorance, injustice far out weights our strategic location.
I agree, I sometimes wish we were a small island country in a remote place. At least we would not have anyone else to blame for our troubles. I suspect we would still find ourselves in enough trouble anyhow.
[quote comment="31338"]Another needless tragedy. Another criminal and inhuman act.
I look at the other thread of Edhi and wonder how teh same society that produced Edhi could also produce such people. Or, maybe, because we have such people therefore we really need Edhi.[/quote]
Actually, it was probably not this society. Sometimes I think that Pakistan’s “strategic” location has been much more of a curse than a blessing. Seems like we’ve been fighting proxy wars since the country’s inception.
Another needless tragedy. Another criminal and inhuman act.
I look at the other thread of Edhi and wonder how teh same society that produced Edhi could also produce such people. Or, maybe, because we have such people therefore we really need Edhi.