Militants attack Pakistani hotel, 5 dead, 25 injured

By Alamgir Bitani
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants attacked a hotel popular with foreigners in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar with guns and a truck bomb on Tuesday, killing five people and wounding 25, government and security officials said.
Taliban militants stepped up bomb attacks after the military launched an offensive in the former tourist valley of Swat and neighboring districts northwest of the capital in April.
A Reuters reporter saw two wounded foreigners coming out of the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar which security officials said militants attacked with guns and a suspected suicide truck-bomb.
"I was in the Chinese restaurant when we heard firing and then a blast. It was totally dark and people started shouting and running," Ali Khan, a hotel waiter, told Reuters.
Intelligence officials said some attackers scaled the wall of the hotel into its compound and opened fire before a big truck-bomb blast in the front car park.
Dozens of cars were destroyed. A hospital official said a wounded foreign woman worked for the U.N. children's fund.
The United Nations is heavily involved in providing relief for more than 2.5 million people displaced by the fighting in Swat and elsewhere in the northwest.
A suicide truck bombing killed 55 people in September last year at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel.
The United States, which needs sustained Pakistani action to help defeat al Qaeda and cut off militant support for the Afghan Taliban, has been heartened by the resolve the government and military are showing in the Swat offensive.
Alarmed by the possibility of nuclear-armed Pakistan drifting into chaos, the United States had criticized a February pact with the Taliban in Swat.
It was not immediately clear how many attackers were involved in the Peshawar hotel attack and what their fate was.
TURNING ON THE TALIBAN
Earlier on Tuesday, the army came to the help of a pro-government militia fighting the Taliban in a northwestern district after outrage over a suspected Taliban bomb attack at a mosque last week that killed about 40 people.
The villagers' action is the latest in a series of examples of people turning on the Taliban in recent weeks, underscoring the shift in public opinion away from the Islamists.
Senior police officer Rahim Gul told Reuters by telephone two army helicopters had attacked militants surrounded by militia fighters in a village in the Upper Dir district. Continued...
Source: Reuters