Pakistan heightens airport security after warning

Pakistan authorities boosted security at Islamabad’s international airport today after a telephone threat warned of a suicide bomb attack.

Senior airport security officer Colonel Ashraf Faiz said flights were not affected and, more than an hour after the time the caller said the strike would take place, no such attack had happened.

Pakistan has been on edge since a massive truck bomb devastated the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday, killing 53 people.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told reporters yesterday on the fringes of the UN General Assembly in New York that international support for Pakistani anti-terror efforts was important, but that unilateral US strikes undermined efforts to win “hearts and minds”.