marriott hotel completely destroyed, page-88

*** The Strange Marriott Hotel Explosion in Islamabad***

What Was Mysterious Activity Going on in the Marriott Hotel Islamabad by United States Marines?
Sunday, 21 September 2008 12:18 www.daily.pk

Marriott Hotel has now become a ghost house which was yesterday the most beautiful and prestigious hotels in the Islamabad. While the condemnation of the blasts and the deaths and the loss of property is going on from all the quarters, some intriguing news is also pouring in.

After the blast, mysteriously fire was started at the fourth and fifth floors. It was said that this fire was the result of gas pipeline burst running through the hotel. The million dollar question is that was the gas pipeline not running through the other floors? Why the fire broke out from the fourth and fifth flours? That is the question which perhaps holds the key to the mystery as why the hotel was targeted yesterday, in which more than 60 people died including many foreigners.

Though it would never get confirmed but the fire on the fifth and fourth floor of the hotel broke out because those flours were housing the mysterious steel boxes under the heavy guard of United States marines and no one including the Pakistani security forces and the security men of the hotel were allowed to go near with the them. These boxes were shifted inside the hotel when the Admiral Mike Mullen met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad.

It is said that one member of parliament Mumtaz Alam who belongs to the PPP, the ruling party was there eye witnessed the whole scene when the white truck of US embassy came to the gate of Marriot Hotel and US marines themselves unloaded the steel boxes from the trucks and shifted them to the fourth and fifth floors without passing through them the scanners at the entrance of the hotels. When the truck was there, all the entrance and the exit passage way to the hotels were closed.

And now this blast has occurred at the Marriott, while that mysterious activity was going on.

source: Pakistan Daily

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Change of plans 'saved' Pakistan leaders from blast

Pakistan's President and Prime Minister were to have had dinner at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel when it was bombed but the venue was changed at the last minute, the interior ministry says.

A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with over half a tonne of explosives into the outer security gates of the luxury hotel on Saturday, killing at least 50 people and wounding more than 260.

"The national assembly speaker had arranged a dinner for the entire leadership, for the President, Prime Minister and armed services chiefs at the Marriott that day," interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters.

"The President and the Prime Minister changed the venue to the Prime Minister's house. The function was not held at the Marriott, thus the whole leadership was saved."

The hotel was instead hosting its regular meal for the breaking of the Ramadan fast at the time of the explosion.

The Marriott Hotel is close to parliament - where Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, on Saturday gave his first address since his election - and the residence of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Pakistani investigators say they are searching for an Islamabad-based cell of Al Qaeda militants believed to have carried out the bombing.

Dramatic video footage of the attack showed the attacker had failed to get through a barrier when he crashed his truck into the hotel's security gates.

He detonated a small bomb in the cab and guards struggled to put out the resulting blaze, the footage showed, before a gigantic blast turned the hotel into a fireball.

source: ABC News

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Two US marines killed in Marriott blast: Pentagon

The US Department of Defence at Pentagon has confirmed the deaths of its two marines in Marriott blast in Islamabad. According to GEO News, the Pentagon said that its two marines succumbed to injuries in the blast. The soldiers were deployed in US embassy in Islamabad. Pentagon said names of the US marines could not be revealed prior to informing families of the victims.

source: Daily Newscaster

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Amir Mohammad, an aide to one prominent Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, said the militant group was not involved and shared the nation's grief.

Mehshud was blamed by the last government for a suicide attack that killed Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's wife, the pro-U.S. politician Benazir Bhutto. He denies that charge too.

"We have our own targets and we execute our plans precisely with minimal loss of irrelevant or innocent people," Mehsud was quoted as saying by his spokesman. "We have nothing to do with the Marriott hotel attack."

source: Nahal Toosi, Asociated Press Writer