Pakistanis Repudiate Violence

Also on Thursday, a roadside bomb exploded in the northwest, killing 10 people, including four children.

Nearly three weeks after suicide bombers killed more than 50 people and injured scores in an attack at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, few here believe a solution to the security dilemma will be found quickly or easily.

Both the United Nations and the British Embassy recently ordered staff to send their families home and placed all of their employees on high alert.

At the U.N. headquarters in Islamabad, employees can no longer simply drive to work. They must negotiate their way on foot past a bevy of armed security guards posted about a quarter-block from the main entrance. Enormous military-style columns of sand, cement and wire mesh were erected to form a bunker around the building shortly after the Marriott attack. Steel plates cover the windows to protect against flying glass.

Amena Kamaal, chief spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Pakistan, said business would continue as usual despite those security changes. With tens of thousands of people displaced by the ongoing military offensive in Pakistan's tribal areas, humanitarian and development aid is sorely needed.

"We don't feel the work needs to be stopped. But we don't want to risk having our staff's children or families being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Kamaal said.

That sort of concern appears to be increasing for many Pakistanis, not just foreigners. But amid the fears, government officials have been conspicuously absent from public view. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has issued several recent statements about the nation's security concerns, but he has made no public address. Rehman Malik, Pakistan's top domestic security adviser, has also said little publicly about the government's plan to address the growing number of attacks in Islamabad and other major Pakistani cities.

By late Thursday, it was unclear what if anything would emerge from the briefing in Parliament by security officials, including the incoming intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha. Politicians are barred from discussing specifics of the briefing publicly. And when lawmakers meet again next week to discuss the intelligence briefing further, those sessions will probably be held out of public view.

The silence and lack of a coherent government response to the bombings have frustrated many Pakistanis. The multimillion-dollar ad campaign that calls on the country to "Say No to Terrorism" is only one sign of the dire turn in public perceptions of security.

"Whenever we see a car go speeding by, my brother and I are thinking: Maybe we should run. Maybe it's a suicide bomber in that car," said Asif Raza, a copy shop owner in the popular Melody Market.

Energetic and enterprising, Raza, 32, returned to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia several months ago to help his brother run the newly opened shop. When he arrived, Islamabad seemed like a different city from the one he left behind five years ago. Like many Pakistanis, Raza said he wonders whether it's time to quit the country altogether.

"We are very frustrated right now. It's as simple as that," he said. "What is the government doing? If they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, then we wouldn't have this security issue right now."