Truck Bomb Kills 11, Injures Dozens At Pakistani Hotel

U.N. Official Slain in Insurgent Strike

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 9 -- A massive truck bomb exploded outside a luxury hotel in northwestern Pakistan's provincial capital Tuesday night, killing 11 people and injuring at least 50, officials said. The attack marked the latest salvo by insurgents who have vowed to avenge an army offensive in the nearby Swat Valley, and it underscored their ability to strike at some of the country's most heavily fortified targets.

Peshawar's Pearl Continental Hotel had been considered an oasis of relative security in a city that has become a front line in the battle between the Pakistani government and radical Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The hotel, a local landmark, had been popular among foreigners, including aid workers who have been using it in recent weeks as a base for their efforts to assist the more than 2 million Pakistanis displaced from their homes by the fighting in Swat.

The bomb, hidden beneath kitchen supplies and estimated to contain more than 1,000 pounds of explosives, caused one section of the hotel to collapse and destroyed more than 30 vehicles, said Shafqatullah Malik, an assistant police chief.

The dead included at least two foreigners, according to law enforcement and hospital sources. One was Aleksandar Vorkapic, an official with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, a U.N. spokesman said. Vorkapic, from Belgrade, Serbia, had been part of a group of U.N. staff members who had been working to assist the displaced families.

The spokesman said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms."

U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said there was no indication that any Americans had been injured or killed. U.S. government personnel had been prohibited from the hotel because of security concerns. Just last week, the embassy issued a warning to Americans to avoid Peshawar altogether. The city has come under increasing strain as the Pakistani Taliban has strengthened, and bombings there have become a regular occurrence.

The Pearl Continental, part of a chain of five-star Pakistani hotels, is one of the few hotels in Peshawar that cater to foreign visitors and well-to-do Pakistanis. It is located in one of the most heavily fortified areas of the city, set near a cluster of government buildings, including a courthouse, the provincial chief minister's house and a major military base.

The State Department has been negotiating to buy the hotel and convert it into a consular building in Peshawar, which is the capital of North-West Frontier Province and the largest city in the region. That deal has not been completed.

Pakistani television networks broadcast images of dazed hotel guests and workers evacuating the building, many covered in dust and some with bloodied faces. The blast demolished the hotel's kitchen, and security guards and kitchen workers appeared to have constituted a large share of the injured, according to hospital officials.

Police and an intelligence official at the scene reported that two vehicles were involved in the attack. First, a Toyota Corolla was driven up, distracting the guards. Then a mini-truck followed. The truck's passengers opened fire on the guards at the gate as the truck sped toward the building. Moments later, the blast shook the hotel and reverberated across the city. At least 50 rooms were damaged, and 10 were destroyed.

President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, saying, "Such incidents will not deter the government from its resolve to eliminate this scourge from the country."

The explosion sent a shaft of light into the night sky, but afterward, emergency workers were forced to hunt through the debris in darkness because the blast knocked out electricity.

Two hotel security guards were taken into custody for questioning, police officials said. An intelligence officer investigating the site said three to five assailants had been involved. The attack conjured memories of a blast at the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad last September, which killed more than 50 people.

Insurgents have launched a string of attacks in Pakistan in recent weeks that Taliban spokesmen have said are revenge for the army's offensive in Swat. The deadliest attack, against a police headquarters and an office of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, killed 30 people in the eastern city of Lahore. Peshawar markets and a movie theater have also been targeted.

The army claims to have retaken nearly all of Swat, just over a month after it began its offensive with the declared goal of rooting out Taliban forces who had overrun the scenic valley.

Government officials have indicated that an operation in the Taliban haven of South Waziristan is next, and on Tuesday the army shelled targets near that mountainous tribal region.

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondents Haq Nawaz Khan and Shaiq Hussain in Pakistan contributed to this report.