Index Research: The Bomb at The Marriott Hotel, Islamabad

by Sarah Meyer Index Research

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updated 20.10.08.



I have avoided suicide attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan in my forthcoming blog on Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, this evening, as I put this blog to bed on the evening of 20 September 2008, al jazeera had excellent live reports on a suicide attack in which “many people” were killed and wounded. This on the day that Zadari said that the US had no right to occupy Pakistan.

One only has to look at the board and chief executives of The Marriott Hotel to understand why “terrorists” (of whatever nationality) have chosen this location. The video report noted that the hotel is a mecca and ‘safe home’ for “western” interests. As aljazeera also said in its live video report, the Marriott Hotel is “popular with western diplomats and western journalists” (and the CIA?). Wikipedia writes that the Marriott is a “franchisor of a range of value and LUXURY hotels and related lodging facilities. Marriott currently has 2,300 accommodation properties in North America alone.”

Not a place the poor in our world can afford.

VIDEO

Dozens killed in Pakistan hotel blast - 20 Sep 08

UPDATES
21 September 2008. al jazeera news, live, reports "no claim of responsibility." See written report
here.

There are three videos of the Marriott affair in the aljazeera article, Rescuers search Pakistan blast site: 1) Grim aftermath of Islamabad hotel attack; 2) Dozens die in attack on islamabad hotel 3) Footage of the attack.

What Was Mysterious Activity Going on in the Marriott Hotel Islamabad by United States Marines
21.09.08. daily pk. After the blast, mysteriously fire was started at the fourth and fifth floors. ... / Though it would never get confirmed but the fire on the fifth and fourth floor of the hotel broke out because those flours were housing the mysterious steel boxes under the heavy guard of United States marines and no one including the Pakistani security forces and the security men of the hotel were allowed to go near with the them. These boxes were shifted inside the hotel when the Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad. See also here .

THE MARRIOTT HOTEL BOMBING – A TERRORIST ATTACK ALRIGHT, BUT WHO EXACTLY WERE THE TERRORISTS?
21.09.08. lataan. Last Thursday a US Predator drone aircraft fired off four Hellfire missiles into Pakistan killing seven people. This was just hours after the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, had personally assured President Asif Ali Zardari that the US would in future respect the sovereignty of Pakistan after previous US incursions both into Pakistani airspace and on to Pakistani soil that had resulted in the deaths of Pakistani civilians. / Relations between the US and Pakistan immediately floundered. Just a couple of day’s later, right on cue, there’s this massive blast at the Marriott Hotel that virtually destroys the hotel and kills scores. ‘Terrorists’ are blamed – the same Islamic extremist ‘terrorists, so we and the Pakistani government are told, who the US was trying to get just a couple of days earlier. And now there’s US National Security Advisor (and one of the few warmongering ultra neocons that is still in the Bush administration), Stephen Hadley, trying to tell the Pakistanis that they need the US to go into Pakistan to get these ‘terrorists’ because Pakistan hasn’t got the wherewithal to do it themselves. / We know, of course, that the Americans and their allies are not above this kind of false flag attack ... / And, since there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber as claimed, or even that the perpetrator was from one of the so-called Islamic extremist organisations, one can, considering the circumstantial evidence, come to the conclusion that it may more than likely have been a false flag attack perpetrated by the US or their allies than one carried out by Muslim extremists who would, incidentally, have absolutely nothing to gain, especially at that time, from such an attack. / We should get over this ‘our government would never do a thing like that’ mentality and take a good hard look at the geo-political reality of what is actually happening in our world and has been happening for some considerable time.

VIDEO

The Marriott Hotel Bombing: A "Horse Head" in the bed?

JI links Marriott blast to Delhi bombings
22.09.08. the post. Jamaat-e-Islami has linked Saturday's suicide attack at the Marriott Hotel to the terror bombings in New Delhi exactly a week ago, saying there may be "one force" behind the attacks in both countries, reported Mid Day, an Indian newspaper. "There can be one force behind blasts in New Delhi and the blast in Islamabad," Jamaat-e-Islami deputy chief Liaqat Baloch told IANS, adding that a foreign hand cannot be ruled out. The Marriott blast took place in the high-security Red Zone of the federal capital and there must have been a very well organized group behind it, he maintained. Lashkar-e-Taiba denies role in India blasts: A Pakistan-based Islamist militant group said Sunday it was not involved in a series of orchestrated bombings across India, angrily denying allegations by investigators.http://

Official: warning on terrorist attack in Islamabad received 3 days ago
22.09.08. People's Daily Online.

Pakistan leaders in narrow escape
23.09.08. australian news. Pakistan's top political and military leadership, including the newly elected President and Prime Minister, came close to being killed in the al-Qa'ida suicide bomb attack on Islamabad's Marriott hotel. / Interior Ministry boss Rehman Malik said last night that President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and army commander Ashfaq Kayani were scheduled to be at a dinner in the hotel when the 600kg bomb went off on Saturday night, killing at least 53 people./ ... While Dr Rehman did not say why the Marriott dinner was cancelled, it is believed that intelligence services got wind of a possible terror strike and advised that the venue should be changed.

Islamabad bombing an "inside job"?
22.09.08. channel4. ... But there's no way the Taliban could have done this - the bomb was too big. "The area the hotel is in is too well protected for terrorists working alone to get at either. There are check points throughout Islamabad.

Who Is Behind the Bombing in Islamabad?
22.09.08. Moon of Alabama/ uruknet. If one wants to make sense of the big bombing that hit the Marriott hotel in Islamabad yesterday, one has to look at the bigger strategic picture. If you believe the usually 'western' media, the U.S. is still an ally of Pakistan and India is still a neutral country. In reality the U.S. and India are allied in a war against Pakistan and China.

Taliban denies role in hotel attack
22.09.08. AlJazeera.net / uruknet.

Shadowy group claims Islamabad bombing: Al-Arabiya TV
22.09.08. AFP. 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 Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, the channel said on Monday. .. / The speaker on the recording spoke in English "with a south Asian accent," he said.

Pakistan rejects U.S. help in probe of hotel blast
22.09.08. USA today. "We do not need help. We are competent. We reject it," Interior Ministry adviser Rehman Malik told reporters Sunday after the U.S. offered FBI help in pursuing the terrorists behind the attack.

The Real Story Behind Marriott Attack
22.09.08. ASIF HAROON RAJA,Asian Tribune.

`
• 10,000 Indian troops are stationed in Afghanistan under the garb of supervising construction of road Jalalabad-Port Chahbahar project that has now been completed. Whereas India has officially declared 14 Indian consulates in Afghanistan, on ground they have 107 in which 20 intelligence units are burning their midnight oil to destabilise Pakistan


• After 9/11 CIA bought the loyalties of pro-Pakistan tribal chiefs, leaving ISI and MI behind, those who refused were killed


• Nek Mohammad was killed by Americans when he made peace with Pakistan


• ISI had once given six figure coordinates of Baitullah and yet no Hellfire missile was fired on his hideout by CIA


• Foreign intelligence agents are involved in carrying out gruesome beheadings of security personnel and torching girls’ schools to defame the real Taliban who had a peaceful agenda


• Besides CIA and RAW, even Iran and Uzbekistan had developed their tentacles in Balochistan, Swat and Kurram Agency


• The nexus in Kabul is working upon a scripted plan to make FATA lawless and beyond the control of security forces, push militancy into settled areas and then into major cities and thus create a civil warlike situation to prove their contention that Pakistan was the most dangerous country in the world and that the extremists were on the verge of taking over power and nuclear weapons

Why was the Marriott Targeted?
23.09.08. TARIQ ALI, Counterpunch / ICH. Hellfire missiles, drones, special operation raids inside Pakistan and the resulting deaths of innocents have fuelled Pashtun nationalism. It is this spillage from the war in Afghanistan that is now destabilizing Pakistan. .. / The majority of Pakistanis are opposed to the US presence in the region, viewing it as the most serious threat to peace. Why, then, has the US decided to destabilize a crucial ally? Within Pakistan, some analysts argue this is a carefully coordinated move to weaken the Pakistani state by creating a crisis that extends way beyond the frontier with Afghanistan. Its ultimate aim, they claim, would be the extraction of the Pakistani military's nuclear fangs. If this were the case, it would imply Washington was determined to break up Pakistan, since the country would not survive a disaster on that scale. / ... In my view, however, the expansion of the war relates far more to the Bush administration's disastrous occupation in Afghanistan. ... When in doubt, escalate the war, is an old imperial motto. The strikes against Pakistan represent - like the decisions of President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, to bomb and then invade Cambodia - a desperate bid to salvage a war that was never good, but has now gone badly wrong.

Marriott blast: Mystery of US Marines' steel boxes being probed
23.09.08. sify. Pakistani authorities are trying to "solve the riddle" of US Marines and their mysterious steel cases that were shifted to the Marriott Hotel four days before it was razed in the worst terrorist attack in the federal capital, a media report on Tuesday said. "The authorities want to ascertain if it was a routine exercise or part of some special mission that does not have the approval of the government of Pakistan," The News said. / The US embassy insists the activity witnessed was a team of support personnel that often and routinely precede and/or accompany certain US officials.

Marriot blast rips hole in Pakistan economy
24.09.08. Syed Fazl-e-Haider, asia times. Business, commerce and markets in Pakistan are reeling from the shockwaves of Saturday’s suicide blast outside the five-star Marriott Hotel in a high-security zone of Islamabad. ... / he Marriott was an essential stopover for foreign business delegations and its destruction in Saturday's blast has further aggravated security concerns among the investors and businessmen from North America and Europe

Ambassador blames US for hotel bombing
24.09.08. bignewsnetwork. Pakistan's ambassador to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, has blamed recent US raids inside Pakistani territory for Saturday's hotel blast in Islamabad.Meanwhile, a number of foreign embassies and businesses in Pakistan are said to be re-examining the security situation, after Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Afghanistan's designated ambassador to Pakistan, was kidnapped and his driver killed by unidentified gunmen. .. /

Marriott hotel investigation team sends more evidences to lab
26.09.08. int news. The team is trying to know whether there was any chemical material kept in third and fourth floors of the Marriott hotel building before the blast, the channel said. On the other hand, the administration of the Marriott hotel has alleged that Capital Development Authority (CDA) was not cooperating in lifting the wreckage.

Some Questions about the '9 20' incident at Marriott Hotel in Islamabad
27.09.08. daily pk. TWENTY ANSWERS REQUIRED!

Five arrested for Marriott bombing
20.10.08. the post.


all good fodder: manufacturing consent for US war in Pakistan

Police scour bombed Pakistani hotel
10.06.09. al jazeera. VIDEO: Hotel bomb blast shakes Peshawar - 10 Jun 09

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Sarah Meyer is an independent researcher living in the UK

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Tags: Index Research, Pakistan, Hotel Marriott