The suicide bombing of Islamabad's Marriott hotel, the city's most prominent American business, yesterday may increase tensions between the US and Pakistan over how aggressively to combat terrorism.
The attack, which killed at least 53 and injured 266 near the capital’s main government buildings, came hours after President Asif Ali Zardari pledged to resist recent incursions into Pakistani territory by the US forces in Afghanistan who are battling Pakistan-based Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas.
Zardari made the promise during his first speech to parliament since succeeding Pervez Musharraf on Sept 9. Zardari's government says it will oppose Islamic insurgents with a combination of negotiation and the selective use of force.
Since 2004, the US has pressed Musharraf, and now his successors, to step up military action against the Taliban and allied groups, which control large swaths of the border zone near Afghanistan. Terrorist assaults killed 2,000 people in Pakistan last year.
“This attack will create more of a disconnect in terms of how the US looks at terrorism in Pakistan and how Pakistan looks at it,” Hassan Abbas, a former security official and now a researcher on Pakistani politics at Harvard University, said by telephone.