Editorial: Peshawar hotel blast

Daily Times
Editorial

A massive 500kg blast inside the compound of the only five-star hotel in Peshawar, the Pearl Continental, reminds us of the October 2008 Marriott Islamabad attack and tells us about the modifications made in the plan of attack by the terrorists as well as the lack of lessons learned by the security agencies. The barrier was one of the most effective erected by the hotel management, but like the Rescue 15 incident in Lahore, the detail of guards mounted to oversee the barrier was not adequately protected. On the side of the terrorists, the lesson learned from the Marriott was that the barrier had to be crossed somehow.
The hotel management can hardly be blamed. Anyone who has visited the Peshawar PC will recall the security erected at the gate of the hotel, which is more distant from the main building than the Marriott barrier was. The guards were always vigilant and unremitting in their strictness despite the dull routine of letting in vehicles through the day. What no one anticipated was that a truck laden with explosives would succeed in making its way through the city roads to the gate of the hotel. More, it was not anticipated that the terrorists would kill all the guards before making their way into the hotel compound.
Some mistakes on the part of the administration were repeated in the light of the Marriott Islamabad blast. The trucks coming into the area were not stopped and inspected. However, one has to admit that Peshawar is not Islamabad and its capacity to inspect all kinds of traffic coming into the area is limited. In Islamabad the plan to block and inspect all big vehicles was in place but was defeated by the terrorists by using the moment of the breaking of the Ramadan fast to get through to the target. In Lahore the recent Rescue 15 attack had a new feature that should have been taken stock of: the terrorists reduced the barrier to zero by killing the guards.
The Marriott blast was planned meticulously by highly educated men who put the truck together in South Punjab before bringing it to some place close to Islamabad without being noticed. In Peshawar conditions are quite different. The administration is quite weak after years of significant advance of warlords and criminals into the various sections of the city. Warlords located in Khyber and other tribal agencies now own properties in the city grabbed from intimidated original owners. There are sections in the city where people calling themselves Taliban rule without being challenged. The ANP government in Peshawar has warned about the steady decline of the writ of provincial government dating from the times when the MMA was ruling the NWFP.
The loss of life is small in proportion to the scale of the explosion. One can say that the hotel security was after all effective in so far as it prevented too many deaths. But out of the 15 killed, the death of those belonging to various UN departments is indeed damaging to the state of Pakistan as it struggles to look after its refugees from the various war zones in the tribal areas. That said, the world will expect Pakistan to stand up and fight despite the reversals it is experiencing from attacks such as the one on the Peshawar PC. The hotel must come back into business after mounting an even better security barrier, like the one at Serena Hotel in Islamabad where the guests may be inconvenienced as a price for their security.
The Taliban are facing challenges in Pakistan as they never faced before. Their casualty rate is significant and they are on the run. But their strength arises from the years of exemption they enjoyed in Peshawar and the adjoining tribal and “frontier region” (FR) cities. This strength is now being challenged and rolled back by the Pakistan Army. The targeting of hotels is significant. It cuts off cities from one another by preventing important people from travelling; and it cuts Pakistan off from the rest if the world. Therefore the Peshawar blast must not result in closure of the hotel. All red tape should be lifted to permit the PC to return to its normal profile with better security. Hotels are symbols of normal life. They are a part of our national struggle against terrorism.
The hotel owner, Sadruddin Hashwani, is a brave and committed man who has given his all to this country. The government must do everything to help him keep his hotels going in the face of adversity.