STRATFOR quotes sources in Geo News that the Speaker National Assembly Fehmida Mirza was hosting an Iftar dinner in Marriott today in honor of the President Mr. Asif Ali Zardari when the blast occurred at the Hotel but luckily Mr. Zardari was not there. With this information coming into light, one must look at this bombing not simply as a random attack but mostly an assassination attempt towards the new President
Pakistan’s National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza was hosting an Iftar dinner reception in honor of President Asif Ali Zardari at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, when the hotel was bombed Sept. 20, Pakistani Daily The News reported. Zardari reportedly was not at the dinner, but the report said other important figures were present, without giving names. GEO News reported that some 100 people may have been killed in the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Though Geo News for the moment has a report at the moment quoting Hashwani, the owner of Marriott that “There was no VIP or foreigner affected by the blast as most of the guests present in the hotel were rescued“. Though the facts are still to be deciphered with the on going investigation, but seemingly it might be important for the government to not expose this lapse in VIP security i.e. if at all such a breach did actually happen.
Comments
19 responses to “Speaker Fehmida Mirza, hosting an Iftar in Marriott for Zardari”
The owner is the Marriott is Sadruddin Hashwani. He is a friend of Zardari and asset of foreign intelligence agencies.
Apparently he consented to placing sensitive US military equipment there. That seems to be why the place was targeted and why it burned so ferociously after the first half hour.
He put the lives of hundreds of innocents at danger.
Very dirty game being played in Pakistan.
I doubt it was intended for Zardari.
check this Jang news…
Jang news
Thanks for the suggestion
http://www.izlekop
What a hog wash conspiracy theory!
is it time to change our attitude towards taliban? they should not be taken as heroes now.
Obviously a high profile target was intended ,be it PM or Prez house,but as the security was tight there so bomber might have changed his mind.
One thing that should be noted here let me quote his speech to joint session:
This is the agenda of moving quickly to heal the wounds of past, to restore the trust in the federation, trendy an apology to the people of Balochistan was a long overdue step.
while apology to our Balochi brethren was definately long over due after that arrogant comment by then dictator Musharraf that they won’t know what had hit them.
But Mr President(Zardari) didn’t said a word about healing the wounds of people of tribal area and the hundreds and thousands who are displaced and affected as a result of unwarranted operation to please the neocon hawk in America..
@ d0ct0r,
Is it a normal practice for a Pakistani president to give speech in English? That surprised me when I heard little bits of the speech of Zardari. The intended audience for the speech was not Pakistanis.
It is foolish to blame the taliban! they are mere pawns! We need to understand that the important thing is not that the taliban did it but the fact that someone used them to do it. We are missing the point here. We have to study motives. Find out how can intel fail each and every time?
Normally potassium sulphate(fertilizer) is the explosive used in these types of act of terror but here in this case military grade RDX is used,obviously Indian involvement is quite obvious,they must have been supplying,motivating and facilitating those brainwashed ‘talibans’ who obviously have grievances against the state for launch an unwarranted operation against their people and tribes to please the neocon hawks in America..
India and Northern Alliance dominated Afghan government(which is openly quite venomous towards Pakistan) is exploiting their grievances for its own nefarious and evil intentions.
While fertilizer is commonly available and easy to procure in large quantities, RDX is not and obviously its coming in from officials sources i.e. Indian terrorist agencies
The Speaker couldnt have had hosted iftari there, they as there was already a dinner for all the politicians n senators etc at the pm house. so the news is probably just propaganda
totally fake news dude..
Confirm before writing such a thing.. u can confirm it with any news channel
There was no Iftari hosted there but I suspect that Zardari and his friends were due at the hotel anytime after the Iftar at nearby PM House. This information, not leaked to media at the time, was definitely with the men who bombed the hotel.
Rehman Malik in his news conference clarified where Zardari and PM were at the time of the blast i.e. PM house and according to the rules in blue book(President’s security handbook) he wanted to ‘evacuate’ them to a safer location but they refused and continued with the dinner.
..and indeed they were to dine at Marriott but last minute change of plans saved them..
Change of plans saved Pakistani leaders from blast(AP)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD93BO3M00
Pakistani president and PM just miss hotel bomb blast
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/22/pakistan.terrorism1
Yar Rehman malik is totally speaking nonsense. complete nonsense..
if there plans were @ mariott , since many hrs media was reporting that all the officials are at pm house. there was v tight security there.. no one cud have gone tehre..
so the bomber chose the secondary target.
Rehman Malik (PPP-bhand) is trying to get some sympathy by saying that.
I don’t think some one would waste tons of explosives to target zardari or rehman malik, these people should rather die in “chulloo bhar pani” …. Lol.
we are ordinary citizens and we will get WHAT THEY WANT TO FEED US…..what really happened or who did it would remain a mystery.
I also have doubts when groups claim responsibility. Who can verify that the caller belongs to that particular group….
Now the owner of mariott hotel, Hashwani has denied Rehman Malik and saying there was no booking at Marriott.
Read at BBC
As usual, our *leaders* try to show themselves as HEROES where as they stand in line with ZEROES
Islamabad: Pakistani authorities are trying to “solve the riddle” of US Marines and their mysterious steel cases that were shifted to the Marriott Hotel four days before it was razed in the worst terrorist attack in the federal capital, a media report on Tuesday said.
According to an official source, the authorities were told that mysterious activity of the US Marines took place around midnight on September 16.
“Already, the government has got information that several rooms on the fourth floor of the Marriott were in permanent use of the US authorities. Three of these rooms were said to be inter-connected and contained some intelligence equipment and other material allegedly used for espionage,” the newspaper said.
Marriott owner Sadruddin Hashwani denied that the Americans had any such presence in the hotel and said that like at any such hotel in the world, his guests included people of different nationalities.
“Why focus on the Americans unnecessarily?” he wondered, flatly denying that the US embassy had permanently hired several rooms in the hotel.
Witnessed by many, including a PPP MNA and his friends, a US embassy truckload of steel boxes was unloaded and shifted inside the Marriott Hotel on September 16 midnight only after Mullen had met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad and had already left the country.
“Both the main gates (the entrance and the exit) of the hotel were closed while no one except the US Marines was either allowed to go near the truck or get the steel boxes unloaded or shift them inside the hotel,” The News said.
“These steel boxes were not being passed through the scanners installed at the entrance of the hotel’s lobby, and were reportedly shifted to the fourth and fifth floors of the Marriott,” it added.
A hotel employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that the management had been receiving threats from unknown persons for the last six months to evict the US officials vacated from the hotel.
Hotel owner Hashwani, however, denied this.
According to the US embassy spokesperson, the mission had been a frequent customer of the Marriott for many years. On any given day, there were employees of the American embassy and official American visitors staying at the hotel.
“There is nothing unusual, secretive or ‘mysterious’ about this,” Fintor maintained.
Asked if three of these permanently hired rooms were interconnected, Fintor said: “For our frequent visiting delegations, the embassy often rented adjoining rooms – as we often do in other hotels in Pakistan and in the world.”
Responding to reports that the CIA was using the US-rented rooms for espionage purposes, the spokesperson said: “Unfortunately, far too many things have been ‘said’ that have absolutely no basis in fact. There is no truth whatsoever in allegations that covert activity was taking place on the part of the United States government.”