ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -
More extremist attacks shook Pakistan yesterday on the heels of a devastating bomb attack on the capital's best-known hotel. Gunmen took the Afghan consul-general hostage after killing his driver, and suicide bombers killed nine police officers at a checkpoint in the valley of Swat, northwest of the capital.
The bombing Saturday of the deluxe Marriott Hotel, in which at least 53 people died and more than 260 were wounded, was still shrouded in mystery. A little-known terrorist group called Fadayeen Islam - "Islamic Commandos" - took responsibility in a tape given to a Dubai-based television news channel, claiming that there had been 250 U.S. Marines and NATO officials at the hotel. Security experts said it was highly unlikely that U.S. forces would be stationed at so vulnerable a location.
Whoever was behind the bombing, it appeared to signal a new phase in the militants' war against the Pakistani state, with a strong sense in the country that it is sliding toward chaos.
"Pakistan is teetering on the brink," said Farzana Shaikh, an associate research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a policy-research organization in London. "There is a weak and deeply divided government and a disoriented army with no clear strategy."
Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, who took office this month, arrived in New York yesterday, where he will hold talks with President Bush today. Analysts think that Zardari will have to try to convince Washington to ease the pressure on his government, which is being sharply criticized at home for following former President Pervez Musharraf's lead and drawing close to the United States.
In Washington, U.S. officials said they thought that al-Qaida or extremists allied with the terrorist group were responsible for Saturday's attack and that the Marriott was hit because it was a "soft target." The motive, they said, might have been retaliation for cross-border strikes that U.S. forces have conducted in Pakistan's tribal areas, along the border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistani government claimed that the bombing came close to hitting the entire Pakistan political and military leadership, which was supposed to have dined at the Marriott on Saturday. Rehman Malik, the head of the Interior Ministry, said that a dinner hosted by the speaker of the parliament for the government and military top brass was supposed to have taken place at the Marriott but that security fears led to a late change.
