A gas cylinder exploded on the top floor of a Pakistani hotel in
Islamabad late Thursday, injuring three women and a child in a city
always on guard against feared terror attacks, police said.
The
blast struck the Citi Hotel in the Blue Area, the Pakistani capital's
ordinarily bustling district of shops and restaurants around 11 pm
(1800 GMT) at a time when people still linger over dinner in the cool
breeze of evening.
"It appears to be a gas cylinder blast," city
police chief Bani Amin told reporters. "It does not appear to be
explosives," he added.
He said four passengers whose Pakistan
International Airlines (PIA) flight was delayed and who were staying in
the hotel, were injured.
"They were staying in a room," Amin added.
Another police official said three women and a child were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
An AFP correspondent saw shattered windows at the scene of the hotel, where water was flowing from the top floor.
Thursday's
blast struck as the country's political and military leadership were
locked in rare cross-party talks designed to close ranks against US
pressure for action against the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network.
Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan would not be pressured into
doing more in the war on terror after stinging US rebukes accused
Pakistan of involvement in recent attacks on the US embassy in Kabul
and a NATO base in Afghanistan and demands that the government cut ties
with the Haqqanis.
Islamabad is the most heavily protected city
in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed Muslim state where routine suicide and
bomb attacks largely concentrated in the northwest are blamed on local
Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Although bombings have
targeted embassies, hotels and restaurants in the past, June saw the
capital's first suicide attack in nearly two years when a bomber blew
himself up in a bank killing a security guard.
Earlier this year,
minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti and liberal politician Salman Taseer
were shot dead in Islamabad in separate assassinations motivated by
their opposition to controversial blasphemy laws. AFP
