A shadowy group calling itself "Fedayeen of Islam" has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in a telephone call to Al Arabiya television, the channel said on Monday. The Dubai-based station's correspondent in the Pakistani capital said he received a text message on his mobile phone showing a telephone number, which he called and then heard a recording in which the group admitted launching Saturday's attack. The speaker on the recording, who identified himself as Ahmad Shah Abdali, spoke in English "with a south Asian accent," he said.
| The phone number belonged to no one, of course. |
Al-Arabiya said Abdali listed several conditions for "halting attacks against US interests in Pakistan." These included "an end to cooperation" between Washington and Islamabad, "an end to operations (by the Pakistani military) in tribal areas," and the release of all militants held in US prisons. The speaker alleged that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber while 250 US Marines and American and NATO officials were in the hotel.
Pakistan has blamed al-Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies based in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan for the attack. Pakistani investigators are hunting an al-Qaeda cell based in Islamabad that is believed to have carried out the bombing of the Marriott Hotel, security officials said Monday. Pakistan's president and prime minister were to have had dinner at the Islamabad Marriott hotel when it was bombed but the venue was changed at the last minute, the interior ministry said.
Investigators said they believed the attackers constructed the massive 600-kilo (1,300 pound) truck bomb at a safe house in the capital, since all lorries entering the heavily-guarded city are searched at checkpoints.
Dramatic footage of Saturday night's attack showed the attacker failed to get through a barrier when he crashed his explosives-laden truck into the hotel's security gates. At least 60 people were killed. It was likely, however, that the explosives were smuggled into Islamabad in small consignments from militant strongholds in the rugged tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, the official added. A Pakistani security official said the explosives used in the bombing were like those used in two other major militant attacks, including one on the Danish embassy in Islamabad in June.
One of al-Qaeda's leaders, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, said that the Danish embassy attack, which killed six people, was "in revenge" for Danish newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (ptui).