In alerts issued just before Christmas and New Year celebrations, the US Embassy and British High Commission in Pakistan have cautioned employees not to visit the Marriott and other hotels in Islamabad amid warnings of a terror attack.
The alerts have asked staff of diplomatic missions not to travel in Pakistan’s capital city for unofficial purposes.
According to a notice published on the Embassy website, the US government is “aware of information that unknown individuals are possibly plotting to attack Americans at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad sometime during the holidays.”
The notice added that all of the Embassy’s American staff are prohibited from visiting the hotel, adding that Islamabad has been placed on “red alert” due to security concerns. It urged mission personnel to refrain from non-essential, unofficial travel in the city throughout the holiday season.
The UK government also issued a security alert, prohibiting the High Commission staff from visiting the Marriot hotel in Islamabad. It also issued an additional advisory barring its staff and advising citizens from visiting parts of North Western areas and Balochistan.
The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is part of a US-based chain and a favourite haunt of diplomats and wealthy Pakistanis. In September 2008, 53 people had been killed at the hotel in a suicide attack that bore the hallmarks of an operation by al-Qaeda or an affiliate.
The alerts follow Friday’s suicide attack in Islamabad in which Pakistani militants thought to have been on the verge of carrying out a suicide bombing in the government district blew themselves up. One officer died in the attack, authorities said.
The interior ministry had said the vehicle had been heading for a high-value target in the capital, without giving details, while Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said timely intervention by the police had averted a “bloodbath”.
The car had exploded near police headquarters on a main road leading to a government sector where parliament and the offices of senior officials are located.
The Pakistani Taliban had claimed the car bombing, saying it was revenge for the killing of one of their leaders. “We take responsibility for the suicide attack against the enemy of Islam,” said a statement from the militants known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of Sunni Islamist and sectarian groups.
TTP militants have been waging a campaign of bombings and suicide attacks for over a decade in a bid to run the country under a harsh brand of Islamic law. They have ramped up attacks after last month calling off a ceasefire brokered by the Afghan Taliban in May.
Pakistan’s military has launched periodic offensives in regions along the Afghan border that have served as safe havens for Islamist militants.
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