Eleven killed in Peshawar luxury hotel terrorist bombing
June 10, 2009
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Suicide bombers shot at guards to get past a checkpoint and set off a huge blast outside a luxury hotel in Peshawar on Tuesday, killing at least 11 and wounding 70 others, according to an official report.
The Pearl Continental Hotel, popular with well-to-do Pakistanis and foreigners, was struck at approximately 10:00pm, when the hotel’s nightlife was in full swing.
In the bombing, a section of the hotel was reduced to rubble and a massive crater was left in the car park.
The blast occurred one week after Taliban leaders warned that they would attack Pakistan’s large cities to retaliate against the army’s attempts to reclaim the Swat Valley from them. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Peshawar, however. It is the largest city in the country’s north-west, having a population of approximately 2.2 million.
Earlier on Tuesday, officials reported that the military engaged Taliban militants on two fronts in the north-west. Helicopters were despatched by the army to support locals that were fighting militants in one district and used artillery against the Taliban in another when sympathetic tribes refused to hand the militants over to the army.
Neither of the operations approached the size of the offensive in the Swat Valley, where 15,000 troops have been engaged in a battle against 7,000 Taliban militants.
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