Toll mounts in "Pakistan's 9/11"

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A surveillance video released Sunday shows security measures at Islamabad's Marriott hotel stopped a suicide truck bomb at the hotel's front gate Saturday night, but security guards seemed confused about what to do next before the truck exploded, devastating the hotel and killing dozens.

About three minutes elapsed between the dump truck's crashing into a retractable metal barrier at the gate and the blast. Security guards can be seen approaching the burning vehicle and then retreating, then returning, one with a fire extinguisher, before disappearing from the video, which ended, presumably, when the truck exploded.

Had the truck made it past the gates, the carnage would have been multiplied many times over.

Pakistani officials said Sunday that 21 foreigners, including two Americans stationed at the U.S. Embassy, were among the 53 killed. Their names were not immediately released. Pakistani officials said a contingent of 30 U.S. Marines was believed to be staying in the 290-room hotel.

An unknown number of people are still unaccounted for, and at least 266 people were injured, most of them hotel workers.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said the bomber's intended target was Gillani's official residence a block from the hotel, where newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari and other officials were gathered to break their daily Ramadan fast when the bomb exploded about 8 p.m.

"The purpose was to destabilize democracy," Gillani said.

"Pakistan's 9/11" the headline in The News, a local daily newspaper, captured the shock felt across the nation. The site of the Marriott, with a crater that measures 59 feet across and 24 feet deep and only a charred shell remaining of the hotel building, was dubbed the country's "Ground Zero."

The interior-ministry chief, Rehman Malik said the bomb — the largest ever seen in Pakistan — included more than 1,300 pounds of TNT and RDX explosives and mortar shells. It also included aluminum powder that acted as a fire accelerant — indicating the massive fire that engulfed the hotel was planned. Many of the dead were literally roasted in their hotel rooms, where temperatures reaching 750 degrees Fahrenheit overwhelmed the hotel's sprinkler system.

Malik said it was too early to pinpoint the culprits but suspicions fell on Islamic extremists based in Waziristan, the wildest part of Pakistan's tribal border area with Afghanistan — where Washington believes al-Qaida and Taliban fighters enjoy sanctuary. The sophistication of the Marriott bombing suggested al-Qaida's involvement, analysts said.

"All roads lead to Waziristan," Malik said.

He said the attack was intended to destroy the hotel, a center of social and political life in the Pakistani capital and a frequent choice of foreign visitors. The ambassador from the Czech Republic was among the dead, officials said.

Security and political analysts in Pakistan said the carefully planned bombing could force the government to prove it is serious about combating terrorism or admit defeat.

"If they don't rise to this challenge, they are finished," said Talat Masood, a retired army general and defense analyst here. "I am not sure they have the capacity to take on such determined militants. To those who call this America's war, the government must make absolutely clear that this is Pakistan's war and how it plans to meet the challenge."

Zardari left Pakistan on Sunday for the United States, where he will address the United Nations and meet with President Bush.

The United States and Pakistan have collaborated closely in the war against terrorism. But their relations have soured in recent weeks after a series of U.S. military operations in Pakistan's northwest tribal areas, including airstrikes and a commando raid, that have aroused protests from the public and the military.

"This attack is a payback to the new Pakistani government for its alliance with the U.S.," said Rifaat Hussain, a defense expert at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. "It is a direct challenge to the writ of the state, a message that they have lethal reach and can strike any target of their choosing."