Click to play videoIslamabad: A deadly suicide attack outside the high-security Marriott Hotel in the heart of Pakistan's capital left at least 50 people dead and hundreds injured.
The attack - one of the worst in Pakistan's history - caused a huge explosion outside the five-star hotel where families had gathered to celebrate Iftar. Earlier reports put the number of dead at 60.
A reporter at the scene told CNN that as many as 200 people were feared to be inside the building. Television images showed flames and smoke pouring out of the hotel and bodies being carried away.
"The explosion happened as a car reached the barricade outside the hotel," said a senior police official, adding that it appeared to have been a suicide attack.
The explosion left a 20-foot deep crater at the entrance.
Police sources said the dead include three South Koreans, two Saudis and one American. There were also foreigners among the injured.
It was a truck bomb
Dazed witnesses said the explosives-laden truck, bearing government number plates, was stopped at the hotel entrance for a routine security check.
"As the security people were looking into the truck, it swiftly moved away and hit the outer wall of the hotel, causing a huge explosion," one man said.
Hotel owner Sadruddin Hashwani was grief stricken as he spoke to reporters outside the hotel complex: "I don't have any enemies... These must be enemies of Pakistan. This is a huge loss to the country, to humanity."
He confirmed to newsmen that sniffer dogs detected the bomber but he blew himself up immediately after.
He also confirmed that five security guards who were checking the truck were among the dead.
Hotel sources said at least 300 people were dining when the earth-shattering blast took place 7.56 p.m., some 40 minutes after sunset when people break the Ramadan fast.
The big bang
The blast was the biggest to hit Islamabad and destroyed dozens of cars outside and shattered windows and damaged buildings hundreds of metres away.
The Marriott chain has its headquarters in the United States. Police at the scene said people were still trapped inside. A crane was brought in to try to get people out.
There was a large crater in the road by the hotel's heavy security barriers. The street was littered with debris and broken branches from roadside trees and acrid smoke drifted in the air.
The hotel has been bombed twice before, the last time was on January 26, 2007 when the Indian High Commissioner was to host a Republic Day reception there.
But the Saturday evening blast was the most serious in the Pakistani capital since the country joined the US-led campaign against militancy in late 2001.
A Reuters witness said he could see fires in at least two places in the hotel and at least 20 cars parked on the street outside had been destroyed.
Television showed bodies being carried away.
Emergency in hospitals
The authorities declared an emergency in Islamabad hospitals.
"The fire has engulfed the whole hotel and people are being rescued," Rehman Malik, an advisor to the prime minister, said at the disaster site.
Security officials said several people residing in the hotel were trapped inside.
Hospital sources said they had received about 40 bodies and more than 100 injured. However, witnesses said the number of dead was over 60 and more than 120 were injured.
Narrow escape for Pak PM
As the truck bomb exploded, crockery came crashing at the prime minister's house, where dignitaries were seated around tables on the lawns of the sprawling mansion.
In no time, security personnel herded the VVIPs to safety.
Some officials said the intended destination of the killer truck might have been the prime minister's house.
Jinxed?
The attack came soon after Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, had made his first address to a joint session of parliament, pledging that Pakistan would not tolerate any infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militants.
Zardari is close to the United States and had earlier promised to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan's commitment to the US-led "war on terrorism", even though it is deeply unpopular.
(With inputs from AP, Reuters, IANS and CNN-IBN)
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