Pak convinced al-Qaeda behind Marriott Hotel blast

SKELETAL REMAINS: A Pakistani police officer stands at the rooftop of Marriott Hotel a day after a truck bombing at the hotel.

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New Delhi: In Pakistan, police have arrested three people including an Imam for the deadly bombing at the Marriott Hotel where 53 people died on Saturday.

But Pakistan still faces the aftershocks of the bombing with British Airways cancelling all flights to the country and a visiting International Monetary Fund team decided to leave early.

The search operation in Marriott Hotel is over and a report by the ISI, Military Intelligence and the police is ready and all of them are convinced that it was an al-Qaeda attack.

The large expat casualties including two US marines and Czech Ambassador Ivo Zdarek has validated the theory.

According to the Interior Minister Rehman Malik all roads lead to Waziristan, which is controlled by radical tribals and Taliban.

"A high level meeting chaired by Secretary Interior is being held today on the security of Islamabad and we are taking very strict measures and qualitative measures," Malik said,

The official word is that the attack was a warning that the increasing tempo of military operations against the Taliban in the tribal lands of the frontier be halted immediately.

But the Army-led offensive in Waziristan and the frontier province is continuing and 10 militants were killed in the Bajaur Agency. The police in Peshawar are cracking down on the growing militant profile in the provincial capital.

The headache, however, seems to be US air strikes on Pakistani targets in the tribal territories.

These appear to replicate strikes in Afghanistan where public anger against civilian casualties of such strikes is growing.

Pakistani troops on Monday reportedly fired at US helicopters that had intruded into the airspace over North Waziristan. Though no casualties were reported but it is another tear in the fabric of the US-Pakistani alliance.

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