Samwel Kumba, David Okwemba And Agencies
20 September 2008
Nairobi — The Kenyan Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistani was on Saturday night damaged in a terrorist attack on the nearby Marriot Hotel.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr Mwangi Thuita confirmed the incident but said nobody in the Embassy was injured in the attack.
Mr Thuita told Sunday Nation that the blast shattered windows and doors of the Embassy building.
AFP news agency reported that at least 60 people were killed and over 100 others injured in the attack.
The attack took place only hours after President Asif Ali Zardari made his first speech to Parliament, pledging to fight terrorism.
According to Pakistan media the country is battling an Islamic insurgency that left 2,000 people dead last year and has strained the nation's relationship with the US as it and allies fight to subdue Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.
AFP reported that "The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack that took place in Islamabad, Pakistan, today," national security council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement.
"This is a reminder of the threat we all face. The United States will stand with Pakistan's democratically elected government as they confront this challenge," said Johndroe, adding that President George W. Bush was briefed by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on the attack.
When Sunday Nation contacted a Bloomberg reporter at the scene, James Rupert, he said that the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is just a few minutes walk from the Kenyan High Commission, which is in an adjacent street.
"In fact, windows were smashed throughout the neighbourhood in which the embassy building sits," he said.
As flames engulfed the hotel, which is popular with foreigners, police said there were still people trapped inside.
"A car laden with explosives rammed the gate at the Marriott and so far we have brought out 40 dead bodies, but the number could well be higher," police chief Asghar Raza Gardazi said.
Dozens of cars outside the hotel were destroyed and windows were shattered in buildings hundreds of meters away.
Al Qaeda-linked militants based in hideouts in the Afghan border have launched a bloody campaign of bomb attacks in retaliation for offensives by the security forces.
The hotel has been bombed twice before but the Saturday evening blast was the most serious.
The fire spread to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located at the foot of the Margalla hills in the city centre.
A crater up to 20 feet deep was blasted into the road next to the hotel's security barriers. The street was littered with debris and broken branches from roadside trees, and acrid smoke drifted in the air.
The explosion brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadhan. Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, was among them.
"We just ran for cover, I could see a lot of injured people lying around me," Gul said.
A waiter, Mansoor Abbasi, was inside hotel after the blast, calling out for any survivors lying in the rubble.
"I was just setting down a glass when it happened ... Everybody started screaming. I pulled out 16 wounded people," said Abbasi said, his jacket stained with blood.
A doctor at a city hospital said 70 wounded people had been brought in. An official at another hospital said 23 bodies and 97 wounded people had been brought in. Dawn Television said several foreigners were wounded.
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