Peshawar: Hotel attack fuels anger with Taliban

[Naveed Yaseen]

PESHAWAR: A plaque on the wall of the guard booth at the gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar reads: "This hotel is protected by latest security system." That system failed late on Tuesday night when militants forced their way through the gate and a suicide truck-bomber drove up to the hotel and set off his explosives bringing down a corner of the five-storey hotel, killing 17 people. The mood in Peshawar is grim and anger with the Taliban is seething. "Our business has been ruined. If the situation continues like this I may move," said Mumtaz Askari, who owns a small book shop in the Storyteller's Bazaar in Peshawar's old city. "Our lives are so insecure. You leave home in the morning and don't know if you'll return in the evening. Women can't go shopping and when children go to school you pray they'll come back safely," Askari said. "Eliminate them once and for all, they're enemies of humanity," he said of the Taliban. Kalimullah, an Afghan working as a waiter in a nearby roadside cafe serving roasted goat and flat bread, said very few people were going out to eat. "I came here to work because there was peace but now it's the same as Afghanistan," he said. "They're not Muslims. A Muslim wouldn't slaughter people like this. They're worse than the Afghan Taliban." The Pearl Continental, or PC as it is known, has for years been a favourite haunt of foreign aid workers, journalists and the odd tourist. "People are sad, they are angry, they are worried," veteran Peshawar journalist Abdullah Jan told Reuters at his home, which is not far from the PC. "These incidents are not doing the Taliban any good but definitely, it will get worse before it gets better, if it gets better," Jan said. "It will get worse when the army goes into Waziristan," he said. reuters

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