Bombing Challenges Aid to Pakistan Refugees

new york times

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — One casualty of the bombing that killed as many as 18 people at a luxury hotel here Tuesday night may be the effort to aid Pakistan’s surging population of refugees, who have been displaced by the military campaign against the Taliban.

Around 30 United Nations staff members were at the Pearl Continental Hotel on Tuesday when the bomber hit it, a United Nations spokesman said, and two were among the dead.

The bombing disrupted operations immediately, if temporarily, prompting a one-day suspension of food distribution efforts and forcing many United Nations agencies to move most of their international staff to Islamabad, the capital.

There, they will regroup, reassess risk levels and determine if and how many foreign staff members will now be posted in Peshawar, United Nations officials said.

“It’s a reshaping of operations, it’s not a reduction,” said Kilian Kleinschmidt, emergency coordinator for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is leading the humanitarian effort.

Among them were 10 World Food Program employees, who had recently been brought to Pakistan to help handle the crush of nearly three million refugees from the Swat Valley, north of here, where the military has been conducting an operation to root out Taliban insurgents for a month.

The bombing at the Pearl Continental was believed to have been carried out by the Taliban in retaliation for the military’s campaign. Taliban leaders promised major attacks in Pakistani cities, and Peshawar has been hit by seven bombs since the operation began.

“This is a very specific targeting of the humanitarian effort,” said a spokesman for the World Food Program, Paul Risley. “It was a tragedy, but it won’t stop the U.N.’s work.”

Two World Food Program employees were wounded in the blast, one of them seriously. But Mr. Risley said that more staff members were expected to arrive in Pakistan in the near future, and that the program would not be reduced. Food distributions were scheduled for Thursday by Pakistani staff members.

The United Nations High Commissioner, Antonio Guterres, condemned the attack in a statement with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “Humanitarian workers around the world are coming under increasing attack and it is the poor, the uprooted and the vulnerable who will suffer the most by their loss,” Mr. Guterres said.

The hotel was also a broader symbol of affluence and Western visitors. It had even been considered by the United States as a location for a consulate in Peshawar.

“Yes, we were looking at it,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administrations special envoy to Pakistan, adding that he had stayed in the hotel. But no deal had ever been closed, he said at a news briefing in Washington.

Diplomats and aid workers increased security measures last year after bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in which more than 50 people were killed. But like in the case of that bombing, the overwhelming majority of the victims were Pakistani.

The United Nations workers killed on Tuesday night were identified as Aleksandar Vorkapic, a Serbian technology specialist with the refugee agency; and Perseveranda So, of the Philippines, who directed education programs in impoverished areas of Pakistan for Unicef.

Two Pakistani drivers and an administrative assistant were among the United Nations local staff who died, said Muhammed Ajmal, a spokesman for the United Nations Population Fund. They were attending a dinner being held at the hotel.

Pakistani news programs on Wednesday broadcast footage from a closed circuit television camera near the security gate of the hotel that showed a man riding a bicycle passing through the security post. Almost immediately, a Toyota car sped inside, and rushed through the security barrier, followed by a small truck laden with explosives.

In a sign of a major security lapse, the electronic barrier was already lowered, allowing the attackers to speed through the security post.

Two Pakistani security officials said that security agencies had been tipped by a source to watch for attacks by the same type of small truck used in the hotel attack.

Security agencies had warned high-profile installations to step up security, among them the Pearl Continental, the officials said, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Officials also said that the Toyota car that entered the security gate first was unrelated to the truck, and that all the attackers were in the truck. The driver of the car, from an upscale area in Peshawar, called Hayatabad, was injured in the blast.

The security officials said that Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, may have carried out the attack, though his group, often quick to claim responsibility, has remained silent about this one.

Sadruddin Hashwani, the owner of the hotel, criticized the government for not providing sufficient security to important buildings. He said he planned to reopen the hotel within two months.

“We will not abandon the more than 2 million people,” Mr. Kleinschmidt said. “That’s very clear.”