A suicide bomber pretending to need help with his car killed
34 people in northwest Pakistan on Sunday while the target
of another attack, the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, partially
reopened three months after a brazen truck bombing there left
54 dead.
The luxury hotel was devastated by the September blast --
blamed on a Pakistani militant group accused of killing U.S.
journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 -- but renovations, a security
overhaul and the addition of a giant, bombproof wall meant
the hotel was ready to welcome guests again, the owner said.
"We have expressed our resolve that we will not bow
before the enemies of Pakistan," owner Saddaruddin Hashwani
said.
The suicide attack Sunday, at a polling station close to
the Swat Valley, occurred as concern grows that extremist
violence will spike now that Pakistan is shifting troops away
from the region toward India. The military has not confirmed
the troop movements, but it has restricted personnel leave,
and reports said thousands of soldiers were being redeployed
from the northwest -- where many al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists
are based -- to the eastern border with India amid tensions
over attacks in Mumbai last month.
