PAKISTAN:Gunmen kidnapped Afghanistan's top diplomat to Pakistan yesterday after killing his driver, underscoring worsening security in the nuclear-armed country two days after a suicide bomber killed 53 people.
British Airways said it had suspended flights to Pakistan because of security fears after the Saturday evening truck-bomb attack on Islamabad's Marriott Hotel.
Arabiya television reported that the little-known group Fedayeen Islam (Partisans of Islam) claimed responsibility for the Marriott bombing, Islamabad's worst attack, in a tape played over the telephone to its correspondent in the Pakistan capital.
Arabiya said the group made several demands, including that Pakistan stop co-operating with the United States.
It said the authenticity of the tape could not be verified and the group is not known to have claimed other attacks.
Before the group claimed responsibility, Pakistan's government had said it expected investigations into the bombing would lead to al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the federally administered tribal areas on the Afghan border.
Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik said President Asif Ali Zardari, as well as the prime minister and army commander, had been due to attend a dinner at the hotel on the night of the attack but the venue was changed on the prime minister's advice.
The Czech ambassador and at least three other foreigners were among those killed in the blast, which wounded 266 people and which security officials said bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda.
The blast reinforced investors' negative attitudes after months of political uncertainty, a currency dealer said.
The beleaguered Pakistani rupee sank to a new low, trading at 78.55 to the dollar before closing at 78.21/28. The rupee has lost 21.2 per cent against the dollar this year.
The Afghan consul general in the northwestern city of Peshawar, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, was seized after gunmen ambushed his car and killed his driver.
Gunmen opened fire on a US diplomat in the city last month.
Pakistan's army is in the middle of an offensive against militants in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border, while the United States has intensified attacks on militants on the Pakistani side of the border, infuriating the Pakistani army.
A security official said troops had fired at two US helicopters that intruded into Pakistani air space on Sunday night, forcing them back to Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed five paramilitary soldiers in the Swat Valley while police said they killed nine militants in a clash in a town near Peshawar.
A senior opposition politician, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said the government should reject US pressure to fight militants, halt offensives and "sit down at the same table" and negotiate peace.
"The government must immediately end any military intervention in the tribal areas," Sharif said in an interview with Italy's La Republica newspaper.Financial analysts said the bombing would be a blow for foreign investment but not a severe one, unless it marked the beginning of a new phase of violence. - (Reuters)