(AKI) - Diplomatic staff in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, will be required to send their children back to the United Kingdom, the British Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday. Some 60 children are to leave Pakistan in the next few days.The Foreign Ministry said the decision followed a review of security for British diplomatic staff in Islamabad after the deadly bombing there last month of the five-star Marriott Hotel. It advised British citizens against staying in hotels frequented by Westerners.
The attack on 20 September killed more than 50 people and injured 260 others at the Islamabad Marriott, a hotel popular with diplomats and foreign visitors, as well as the Pakistani elite. Nine people have been arrested connection with the bombing, which was claimed by a little-known Islamist group calling itself the Fidayeen-e-Islam.
The British Foreign Ministry said it was offering the spouses of diplomatic staff in Islamabad the opportunity to return to the UK if they wished. "A number of other diplomatic missions in Islamabad have recently taken similar steps," the Foreign Ministry stated, adding that London's move was not a reaction to any specific threat.