NEW JERSEY, MAY 16 - The Pakistani government on Tuesday
announced that the Peshawar suicide attack that left at
least 25 people dead was not linked to the recent killing of
Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah by Nato forces in
Afghanistan.
The interior ministry’s spokesman Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema
told reporters at a press conference that “we have found no
clue suggesting that the attack was in reaction to the
Taliban leader’s killing in Afghanistan". Dadullah was an
Afghan national operating from Afghanistan and he died
there. Pakistan has nothing to do with his death," he added.
But, Stratfor whose website claims to provide
actionable intelligence to its clients, confirmed reports that
authorities did pick up one of Dadullah's relatives from the
hotel days before the Taliban leader's death in Afghanistan.
The detained relative reportedly provided intelligence that
led to the engagement that ended in Dadullah's death, the
news intel firm said.
The owner of the restaurant, his brother and son were killed
in the suicide attack. The restaurant owner Sadruddin was an
Uzbek of Afghan origin and he was a supporter of former
Uzbek warlord Abdur Rashid Dostum whose posters adorned
walls of the restaurant, Dawn reported today.
Intelligence agencies the world over, said Stratfor,
use hotels for source meetings and, given that such an
encounter took place at the Marhaba with Dadullah's
relative, the target for the attack could have been a source
meeting, the news intelligence agency added.
The news intel agency also observes in its latest analysis titled "The
Peshawar Attack and Musharraf's Crisis" that "the hotel
bombing, coupled with the May 14 attack on U.S. and
Pakistani troops holding a meeting at a border checkpoint,
along with Pakistan's ongoing political unrest, could hasten
the collapse of the President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's
regime."
The analysis says that the May 15 Marhaba hotel attack could
have been retaliation for the killing of top Taliban
military commander Mullah Dadullah. Additional attacks are
likely and will add to the growing political instability and
insecurity in Pakistan, it added.
The bombing was a suicide attack as Pakistani investigators
found two severed legs and nuts and bolts, things normally
used in such attacks. NWFP Law Minister Malik Zafar Azam
told reporters that it was a suicide attack. “I myself saw
the suicide bomber’s two legs inscribed with two messages,
one in Pushto and the other in Persian. The message written
in Pashto warned that those spying for America would face
the same consequences.”
He added that the owner of the hotel, which is located near
the historic Masjid Mahabat Khan, was from Mazar-e-Sharif in
northern Afghanistan and most of the customers at the hotel
were Afghans.
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