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Islamabad Pakistan Marriot: What was the US Marine role?
On Monday night, a shadowy group, calling itself Fidayeen-e-Islam, had claimed responsibility for the Marriott Hotel attack in a telephone call to Al-Arabiya television. The Dubai-based television’s correspondent in Islamabad said he received a text message on his mobile phone showing a telephone number, which he called and then heard a recording in which the group admitted launching the September 20, 2008, attack.
The caller, who spoke in English with South Asian accent, identified himself as Ahmad Shah Abdali and put some conditions to stop attacks against the US interests in Pakistan, including an end to the Pak-US cooperation.
Ahmad Shah Abdali said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber while 250 US Marines and NATO officials were inside the Marriott Hotel. However, officials probing the September 20 terrorist attack insist that the telephonic claim was meant to confuse the investigators and to divert their attention from the actual culprits … The News by Amir Mir Sept. 23rd, 2008
(http://rupeenews.com/2008/09/21/islamabad-pakistan-marriot-what-was-the-us-marine-role/)
Russian Military Analysts are reporting in the Kremlin today that the massive blast that caused 53 deaths at the Islamabad Marriott hotel in Pakistan was an operation conducted by India’s foreign intelligence agency The Research and Analysis Wing [RAW] in an attempt to ‘decapitate’ Pakistan’s entire leadership. India had become ‘alarmed’ by the United States and Pakistan’s ISI plan…
Americans’ presence at Marriott not a secret: US embassy
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
By Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani authorities are trying to solve the riddle of US Marines and their mysterious steel cases, which were shifted to the Marriott Hotel four days before the hotel was reduced to ashes by the worst ever terrorist attack in the history of the federal capital.
These authorities want to ascertain if it was a routine exercise or part of some special mission that does not have the approval of the Government of Pakistan.
The US embassy insists the activity witnessed was a team of support personnel that often and routinely precede and/or accompany certain US officials. However, the government authorities probing the matter have already got most of the facts ascertained as mentioned in The News story on Sunday.
According to an official source, the authorities were told that mysterious activity of the US Marines took place around 12:00 midnight on 16 September. Already the government has got the 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.
Sadruddin Hashwani, the owner of the Marriott, when approached denied that the Americans had any such presence in the hotel and said that like any such hotel in the world his guests included people of different nationalities. “Why focus on the Americans unnecessarily,” Hashwani wondered. He refuted that the US embassy had permanently hired several rooms in his hotel.
The US embassy spokesperson Lou Fintor, however, when asked if the US embassy had hired several rooms in the Marriott Hotel for years, said in his written reply that the US embassy has been a frequent customer of the Marriott Hotel for many years. On any given day, he said, there were employees of the American embassy and official American visitors staying at the hotel. “There is nothing unusual, secretive or ‘mysterious’ about this,” he said.
When 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 unconfirmed reports that the US-rented rooms in the Marriott Hotel were being used by the CIA for espionage purposes, he 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.”
The spokesman said that these allegations are inaccurate, irresponsible, baseless and completely without any foundation whatsoever.
About the Marines and the steel cases which were reported to have been shifted to the hotel between the night of 16 and 17 September and whether these Marines and the suitcases were in the hotel on the day of the blast or evacuated before, he said, “A team of support personnel often and routinely precede and/or accompany certain US government officials. They often carry communication and office equipment required to support large delegations, such as high-level administration officials and members of the US Congress.”
He added that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would travel with communications equipment. “It is quite possible that some saw this communications equipment moved into the hotel. This equipment would leave with the CJCS. If the equipment was transported in full public view then obviously there was no attempt made to conceal its movement.”
Witnessed by many, including a PPP MNA and his friends, a US embassy’s truckload of steel boxes was unloaded and shifted inside the Marriott Hotel on September 16 midnight only after Mike Mullen, the US Admiral, had met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and others in Islamabad and had already left. 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. 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.
The US embassy spokesman also confirmed that the Marriott rooms, which were in use of the US officials, had the communication and office equipment, which were transported for use by Admiral Mullen.
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A hotel employee, on condition of not being named, confided that the hotel management had been receiving threats from unknown persons for the last six months to get the US officials vacated from the hotel. However, Mr Hashwani when confronted said that there has been no threat received by the hotel management.
LONDON, Sept 23: Pointing out a number of parallels between the terrorist tactics of LTTE and those of the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine, Sri Lankan Defence spokesman and cabinet minister Keheliya Rambukwella has claimed that the latter has been drawing extensively from Tamil Tigers’ book of terrorist tricks.
Referring to Saturday’s truck bombing of Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Mr Rambukwella said a similar truck bomb of almost similar intensity had been rammed through the gates of Colombo’s Central Bank by LTTE terrorists in 1996, killing 91 people.
Mr Rambukwella was speaking to the media at the Sri Lankan High Commission where Pakistan’s media representatives and correspondents of Pakistan-based media organisations were specially invited.
He claimed that the current technology of a suicide jacket used by Al Qaeda was actually developed by the Tamil Tigers.
He said the Sri Lankan government had now stopped all peace negotiations with the LTTE.
“You see after every truce agreement the LTTE would regroup, rearm and refund itself more vigorously and come back fighting with redoubled force. Exactly the way the Taliban have been doing in Pakistan over the last three years. This tactic also they seem to have learnt from LTTE’s book,” he said answering a question.
