Pakistan leaders 'targeted by Marriott bomb'
Pakistani leaders changed plans to dine at Islamabad Marriott hotel hours before suicide bomber killed 60 people
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Monday, 22, Sep 2008 07:54
The president, prime minister and military chiefs of Pakistan could have been the intended targets of a bomb at the Islamabad Marriott hotel which killed more than 60 people this weekend.
The country's interior ministry has admitted that president Asif Ali Zardari and other senior leaders had been due to dine at the hotel on Saturday.
Their plans were changed at the last minute, meaning they avoided the truck bomb blast that killed at least 60 and wounded more than 260 people.
"The national assembly speaker had arranged a dinner for the entire leadership, for the president, prime minister and armed services chiefs at the Marriott that day," interior minister Rehman Malik was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
Mr Malik, who did not explain why the plans were altered, added: "The president and the prime minister changed the venue to the prime minister's house... thus the whole leadership was saved."
Three men have so far been arrested in connection with the attack, which has been linked to both al-Qaida and Taliban militants.
Video footage released yesterday shows the lorry, packed with 600kg of explosives, pulling up to a security checkpoint 20m from the hotel entrance before the driver sets himself on fire, detonating the bomb, destroying the CCTV camera and leaving a 20ft crater.
Mr Zardari responded to the bomb by calling on "all democratic forces" in Pakistan to combat the "cancer" of terrorism.