Center for a New American Security

Saturday night, hours after President Zardari told a joint session of the Pakistani Parliament that "we must root out terrorism and extremism wherever and whenever they may rear their ugly heads," a suicide bomber struck the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Forty people were killed in the blast, including the Czech Ambassador to Pakistan, and several hundred were wounded —making it one of the worst acts of terrorism in the county’s history. The English-language Daily Times has gone as far as to term the event "Pakistan’s 9/11."

This is at least the third time the Mariott, which has an important symbolic value and is very popular with Westerners, has been attacked. It is important to note that the hotel is located is one of the most secure sections of the capitol. According to Pakistani television, this coordinated attack involved at least two vehicles, the first which breached the security barrier at the hotel to clear the way for a dump truck packed with explosives. The blast went off just a few hundred yards from the prime minister’s house, where all the leaders of government were dining after the president’s address to Parliament.

While there has been no claim of responsibility for the attack some Pakistani analysts have suggested the bombing may have been carried out by Pakistani Taliban in retaliation for army operations in the tribal areas of Bajaur and Swat. Marie Lall from Chatham House points the finger at the recent incursions into Pakistan by American forces as the motivation.

Following the attack, Zardari pledged to eradicate the “cancer” of terrorism in Pakistan and then promptly departed for a five day visit to the United States, which certainly won’t give the impression that the new Pakistani government is any more independent of America than Musharraf was.

This incident raises a lot of questions:

• In the wake of the most significant act of terrorism in the capital, will the new government’s approach to terrorism and militancy mirror the path taken by Musharraf following the Lal Masjid siege? A corollary to this question is, of course, how much control does the new government have over the military and the ISI? You can find one answer to that latter question here.




• Will this attack have any effect on Pakistani perceptions of the Tehrik-e-Taliban? The Mariott was certainly a “western” target, yet hundreds of Pakistanis (admittedly upper-class and/or government types) were reportedly breaking their Ramadan fast in the hotel’s restaurants. Could this have an effect on Pakistani public opinion, which has been rather ambivalent about the domestic danger posed by the Pakistani Taliban?




• What, if any, is the cause and effect relationship with the recent spate of cross border attacks by the U.S. on militant base areas inside Pakistan? Could this attack indicate that the raids, controversial though they may be, are actually having enough of an effect that the Pakistani Taliban feel the need to escalate their violence in an attempt to bring pressure to bear on the government to halt the practice?

Update: Conspiracy theories being what they are in this part of the world, there are rumors that the Marine Corps had some kind of operation based in the Marriott that was the real target of the attack.

Update 2: At this stage the speculation about this attack exceeds the hard facts, but nevertheless at least one Indian analyst is pointing the finger in the direction of Al Qaeda based on circumstantial evidence: The Marriott Hotel chain has been the target of AQ linked attacks in the past (in both Pakistan and Indonesia) and the ability of Pakistani terrorists to carry out attacks in highly-protected areas of Islamabad and Rawalpindi has increased sharply over the past year, which suggests some sort of assistance in planning. According to the Times of India, an unnamed U.S. intelligence official concurs with this assessment. There is also speculation that Parliament House may have been the real target, and the hotel was attacked when it proved impossible to hit the senior government officials nearby.

Update 3: Having had a chance to see the video from the carpark, it appears that there was not a first car as originally reported, and that the truck carrying the bomb couldn't get past the gate. The fact that the detonation of the bomb triggered the gas fire is likely more due to luck (from the attacker’s perspective) than planning. Troy thinks there would have had to be a relatively long lead time for the planning of this attack, therefore the fact that Zardari & co. were having dinner nearby is likely a coincidence rather than having been the “real target” as some have suggested. Troy’s favorite expert on Pakistani militants pointed out to him that since the attack was timed to take place after Iftar there would be many Pakistani elites breaking their fast at the hotel and (having stayed at the Marriot on several occasions) had the attackers actually managed to breach the security gate the short distance to the hotel would have meant that the death toll could have been substantially higher.

Update 4: According to Pakistani interior advisor Rehman Malik, the bomb used in the attack “carried 600 kilograms of RDX and TNT explosives, along with splinters, mortars, artillery rounds, mines and aluminium powder” the latter of which caused the fire in the truck that can be seen in the surveillance video. Previous attacks carried out by the Al Qaeda affiliated Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) in Islamabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi reportedly used a similar mix of RDX and TNT.