By IINA,
Islamabad : Pakistan’s top leaders were due to have dinner at Islamabad’s Marriott hotel on the night it was bombed but escaped unhurt after switching venue at the last minute, officials said yesterday. Interior ministry Chief Rehman Malik said the “whole leadership was saved” by the change ahead of Saturday’s devastating attack, including President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and military top brass. But the management of the Marriott Hotel denied the official statement. A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with over half a ton of explosives into the security gates of the luxury hotel, killing more than 60 people and wounding more than 260 in a massive fireball.
Malik said that the speaker of the National Assembly (lower house of parliament) had arranged a dinner for Zardari, Gilani and armed services chiefs at the Marriott. “The president and the prime minister changed the venue to the premier’s house. The function was not held at the Marriott, thus the whole leadership was saved,” Malik added. “There was no reservation from the government side,” spokesman for hotel owner Sadruddin Hashwani said. “I have checked from the management and the hotel administration, no booking had been made for an official dinner on that day,” he said.
A shadowy group calling itself the “Fedayeen of Islam” claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing. Al Arabiya television’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 said it carried out the attack. The speaker on the recording, who identified himself as Ahmad Shah Abdali, said the aim of the bombing was “to kick the American Crusaders out of Pakistan.” “Muslims are advised to keep out from facilities that are being used by American and European crusaders because we will target” these places, he said. “America should stop interfering in… Pakistan and Afghanistan. America must stop its strikes in border areas. “America has to release all Pakistanis… and all other mujahedeen detained in its secret prisons all over the world. “America must close its embassy and diplomatic mission.” The authenticity of the claim could not be verified, the channel said.
Malik did not explain why the prime minister and president decided to move the dinner from the Marriott to the prime minister’s house but said the decision was kept secret. “Perhaps, the terrorists knew that the Marriott was the venue of the dinner for all the leadership where the president, prime minister, speaker and all entire leadership would be present,” he said. Malik had earlier blamed Al Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies based in Pakistan’s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan for the attack. Pakistani investigators scrambled to track down an Islamabad-based Al Qaeda cell believed to have carried out the bombing. “Our focus at the moment is to track down the network in Islamabad which must have facilitated the movement and construction of the bomb,” a senior official said.