Bombed Pakistan hotel reopens

THE luxury Marriott hotel in Islamabad reopened yesterday, just three months after it was destroyed in a suicide truck bombing that killed 60 people, the worst attack in Pakistan this year.

The bomber had rammed a truck containing 600kg of high explosives into the outer gates of the hotel on September 20, sending shock waves through the capital.

“I have made this hotel a fortress,” Sadruddin Hashwani, the owner of the Marriott and one of Pakistan’s richest men, said as he lit candles in front of huge pictures of employees killed in the attack.