At least 11 killed in truck-bomb attack on Pakistan hotel

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN, AND PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN —  A suicide truck bombing at an upscale Peshawar hotel late Tuesday killed at least 11 people and injured 50, the latest in a series of bloody attacks across this war-torn country as government troops seek to drive Taliban militants out of the northwest region.

The blast occurred at the Pearl Continental, a heavily fortified and secured hotel commonly used by foreigners and dignitaries.

At least two of the dead were United Nations employees. One was Perseveranda So, UNICEF’s chief of education in Pakistan. She had worked for the agency since 1994. Earlier in the day, she toured displacement camps in Mardan. Also killed was a Serbian man who worked as an information technology officer for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees.

The attack in the North-West Frontier Province capital was the latest in a string of bombings and ambushes in key cities as the government presses a major offensive against Islamists in the Swat Valley and surrounding districts.

Witnesses said the blast was set off in the parking lot, reducing sections of the left side of the hotel to rubble and twisted steel. At least 50 of the hotel’s 150 rooms were destroyed as well as its banquet hall and kitchen and 40 parked cars.

Security guard Salim Khan said a white pickup truck pulled up to the main entrance, where heavy metal barriers bar the way while guards inspect each approaching vehicle. Gunmen jumped out of the truck and exchanged gunfire with the guards, Khan said.

The truck then sped past gardens and a pond into the parking lot, where it exploded.

The provincial information minister, Iftikhar Hussain, said the vehicle was loaded with 1,100 pounds of explosives. Hussain put the death toll at 11 and said at least 50 people were injured. A search for additional bodies continued overnight.

Television reports said many of the injured were hotel workers. Among the dazed people streaming out of the hotel were U.N. employees, including Britons with the World Food Program, witnesses and Peshawar officials said.

Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility, Pakistani authorities have characterized recent attacks on civilian targets as retaliation by the Taliban for major gains made by government troops since their operation began in late April.

Military commanders say they have secured much of the territory in Swat and the nearby Buner district that the fundamentalist militants had controlled before the offensive began. The government sent troops to the northwest after the Taliban reneged on a peace deal in which its members were supposed to lay down arms in return for the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law, in Swat.

The latest attack is likely to raise questions about security at sensitive locations, such as government buildings, security complexes and hotels in the largest cities. It was reminiscent of the massive truck bombing in September at the Marriott Hotel in the heart of the nation’s capital, Islamabad, which took more than 50 lives and left a gaping crater in the parking lot of the heavily secured complex.

Peshawar, a city of 3 million, has been especially hard hit. On May 28, bomb blasts at bustling markets and at a checkpoint on the city’s outskirts killed at least 10 people. A car bomb outside a crowded movie theater the previous week killed six people and injured 75.

The bombing Tuesday mirrored the attack May 27 on buildings in Lahore housing police and the regional headquarters of the national intelligence agency. In that incident, gunmen leaped out of a white van and fired at police officers at security gates, allowing the van to be pulled up near the buildings and detonated. The blast killed at least 27 people, and wounded more than 250. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for that attack.

Former Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said Tuesday’s violence was likely to further unnerve a nation that has increasingly rallied behind the government’s bid to crush the Taliban insurgency.

“Their basic aim is to create maximum terror,” Sherpao said on television. “They want to create terror so that people become more fearful and put pressure on the government to stop the military operation.”

The military says it has killed more than 1,300 militants during its northwest offensive, a number that cannot be independently verified.

In a sign that public anger with the Taliban continues to grow, members of a tribal militia in the Upper Dir district, west of Swat, pressed on with their bid to oust Taliban fighters from their villages.

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alex.rodriguez@latimes.com

Ali is a special correspondent.

Times staff writer Carolyn Cole contributed to this report.