UN to evacuate children of staff as four die in Pakistan suicide attack

THE United Nations has ordered children of its international staff to leave Pakistan after raising its security level following a suicide attack on the Marriott hotel in the capital, a UN official said yesterday.

The security alert came as a suicide bomber killed himself and three other people in an attack aimed at a prominent ethnic Pashtun politician, police said.

The politician, Asfandyar Wali Khan, leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), which is part of the ruling coalition government, was not hurt in the attack in the northwestern town of Charsadda, police said.

The blast, the latest in a wave of bomb attacks by Islamist militants, came as the UN said it was raising its security level in Pakistan and children of international staff would have to leave the country.

“Phase three has been approved by the secretary general,” said UN information officer Ishrat Rizvi, referring to a security level under which dependents of UN staff have to leave.

The United Nations remained committed to Pakistan and the new security level would have no impact on its operations, she said.

“It is a matter of only evacuating the children of international staff members which doesn’t make any difference to the work of the United Nations,” she said.

A suicide truck bomber attacked the Marriott Hotel in the capital Islamabad on September 20, killing 55 people, among them six foreigners including the Czech ambassador and three Americans.

Aid groups and some embassies, and foreign companies are expected to follow the UN move and ask dependents of their international staff to leave.

“Obviously, Mr Asfandyar Wali was the target as the suicide bomber tried to enter his guest house but was shot by the security people. He then fell to the ground and blew up,” provincial police chief Malik Naveed told Reuters.

Hospital officials said more than a dozen people had been wounded.

There have been 89 suicide attacks across the country since July 2007, in which nearly 1,200 people have been killed.

Security forces are battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants in remote, semi-autonomous regions on the Afghan border and up to 1,000 militants have been killed since August, the military said.