PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Suicide attackers detonated a truck bomb Tuesday outside a luxury hotel in Peshawar that U.S. officials were negotiating to make into an American consulate, officials said.
The attack killed at least five people and wounded at least 65 more.
The motive for the assault was not clear, and two U.S. officials in Washington said they were not aware of any signs that the U.S. interest in the compound had played a role in its being targeted.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the largest city in Pakistan’s restive northwest, but it fit the pattern of recent attacks that the Taliban said it launched in retaliation for a military campaign against militants in the Swat Valley region.
Television footage showed that part of the Pearl Continental Hotel had been demolished in the blast, reduced to concrete rubble and twisted steel. The scene was pandemonium, with police rushing around and Pakistani men standing by looking stunned. One man held a bloodied rag to his head.
A large crater was blasted into the ground.
An Associated Press reporter saw six foreigners being helped out of the hotel with injuries, including at least two with bandages around their heads.
Peshawar district coordination officer Sahibzada Anis said one foreigner was among the dead and identified him as a Serbian national working for the U.N. refugee agency. He said a Briton, a Somali and a German were among the injured.
Calls to officials with the U.N. refugee agency in Pakistan were not immediately answered.
Amjad Jamal, spokesman for the World Food Program in Pakistan, said more than 25 U.N. workers were staying at the hotel when the attack occurred. He said all seven WFP workers were safe, but he could not speak for other U.N. agencies.
Witnesses described three men riding in a truck approaching the main gate of the hotel and opening fire at security guards as they entered the gates, police official Liaqat Ali said.
The method matched that of a May 27 attack on buildings belonging to police and a regional headquarters of Pakistan’s top intelligence agency in the eastern city of Lahore, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility. In that attack, a small group opened fire on security guards to get through a guard post and then detonated an explosive-laden van.
