Militants attacked a hotel popular with foreigners in the Pakistani city of Peshawar with guns and a truck bomb today, killing at least five people including a UN worker, authorities said.
Taliban militants have stepped up bomb attacks since the military launched an offensive in April in the former tourist valley of Swat and neighbouring districts northwest of the capital.
Militants shot their way through a security post at the gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar and a suspected suicide bomber set off the truck-bomb in front of the lobby, security officials said.
Top city administrator Sahibzada Anis said five people had been killed, among them a UN refugee agency worker. Police said the man was Serbian.
About 70 people were wounded among them a German woman working for the UN children's fund. A British man and a Nigerian man were also wounded, Anis said.
The United Nations is heavily involved in providing relief for more than 2.5 million people displaced by the fighting in Swat and elsewhere in the northwest.
About a dozen UN staff were staying at the hotel and some had been wounded but there had been no report of any fatality, a UN official said.
The hotel's windows were shattered and dozens of cars were destroyed. Police said the bomb contained 500kg of explosives, a similar size to a suicide truck bomb at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September that killed 55 people.
There was no claim of responsibility for the latest attack but the Taliban have warned of retaliatory action over the offensive in Swat.
Reuters