Bomb Blast at Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan | At least 40 dead

At least 40 people were killed on Saturday in a suspected suicide car bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, the city’s police chief reported. “A car laden with explosives rammed the gate at the Marriott and so far we have brought out 40 dead bodies, but the number could well be higher,” police chief Asghar Raza Gardazi said.

The hotel was badly damaged and caught fire after the blast, which destroyed dozens of cars outside and shattered windows and damaged buildings hundreds of metres (yards) away.

Hours before the blast President Asif Ali Zardari, making his first address to parliament, several hundred metres to the east of the hotel, said terrorism had to be rooted out.

Police at the scene said 20 bodies had been taken away and people were still trapped inside. A crane was brought in to try to get people out.

Fire began in at least two places in the building and spread to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located at the foot of the Margalla hills in the city centre. 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 blast brought down the ceiling in a banquet room where there were about 200 to 300 people at a meal to break the fast during the holy month of Ramadan, Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, was among them. “We just ran for cover, I could see a lot of injured people lying around me,” Gul said.

The hotel, popular with foreigners, has been bombed twice before but the Saturday evening blast was the most serious in the Pakistani capital since the country joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy in late 2001.

Al Qaida-linked militants based in sanctuaries in the Afghan border have launched a bloody campaign of bomb attacks in retaliation for offensives by the security forces.

Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is close to the United States and had earlier vowed to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan’s commitment to the US-led campaign against militancy, even though it is deeply unpopular.

In his address to parliament, he said Pakistan must stop militants from using its territory for attacks on other countries. He also said Pakistan would not tolerate infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militancy.

Zardari won a presidential election this month to replace firm US ally Pervez Musharraf who stepped down in August under threat of impeachment. Zardari is close to the United States and had earlier vowed to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan’s commitment to the US-led campaign against militancy, even though it is deeply unpopular.

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Bomb blasts rock New Delhi, 14 killed

At least 14 people were killed and dozens injured on Saturday as a series of synchronised bomb blasts rocked some of the busiest market areas of the Indian capital, police said.

“We can now confirm five blasts,” said police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.

The Press Trust of India said a Muslim militant outfit, Indian Mujahideen, had claimed responsibility for the bombings in an e-mail. The group has claimed previous bomb attacks in other Indian cities.

“We can confirm 14 people killed, 40 injured,” Bhagat told AFP.

Television reports put the death toll as high as 18, with more than 70 taken to hospital for treatment.

The five blasts included two at Connaught Place — the city’s largest financial, commercial and business centre, and two more at the upmarket shopping district of Greater Kailash.

India’s television network NDTV quoted the email as saying, “In the name of Allah, the Indian Mujahideen has struck back again.”

Delhi Mayor Aarti Mehra appealed for calm as the blasts spread panic through the city.

“We have the strength to face this,” Mehra told reporters.

“Please stay calm. People in markets right now should go home. Do not be afraid.” he said. “The police and government agencies are on your side. Delhi’s strength is in its people. We cannot be frightened.”

The first blast went off around 6:30 pm (1300 GMT) on a busy Saturday evening, and the others followed in swift succession.

Police at one of the bomb sites in Greater Kailash searched for survivors among a mess of mangled motorcycles and shattered glass from vehicles caught in the blast.

“I was stepping out for a cup of tea when everything turned black in front of me,” said Gulab Singh, an underground train guard. “Then everyone started running.”

Joint Delhi Police Commissioner Ajay Kashyap said an unexploded bomb had been found in Connaught Place.

An explosive expert with one of the bomb disposal units said the explosive devices appeared to have been packed with steel ball bearings and nuts and bolts “to cause maximum harm.”

Triple blasts in New Delhi in October 2005, blamed on Pakistan-backed Islamic rebel groups, claimed nearly 70 lives, while a 2001 attack on India’s national parliament complex also blamed on Muslim militants killed 14 people.

Indian Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for a wave of bombings in July that killed at least 45 people in the western commercial city of Ahmedabad.

The Ahmedabad blasts came a day after a series of bombings in the southern high-tech city of Bangalore that killed one person and injured eight.