Rescue teams hunted for survivors yesterday in the ruins of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel, where a massive truck bomb killed at least 53 people in what officials said looked like the work of al-Qaeda.
Around 200 more were wounded in the suicide attack Saturday night in the heart of the capital, which came just hours after Pakistan's new president gave his inaugural address to parliament and vowed to stamp out terrorism.
Pakistan's interior ministry Sunday blamed al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants from tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan for the massive suicide attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
Top ministry official Rehman Malik told a news conference that attackers involved in recent bombings were all from the tribal areas known here by their acronym FATA, and said the militant region was behind the latest carnage.
Rescuers on Sunday retrieved the body of Czech Republic's envoy to Pakistan Ivo Zdarek from the wreckage of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, officials said.
Ivo Zdarek called his embassy moments after Saturday night's bombing from inside the hotel asking to be rescued, but he has not been heard from since, the embassy's number two diplomat Jaroslav Kalfirt told AFP in Islamabad.
Kalfirt said joint efforts with the Pakistani authorities to locate the ambassador had failed.
A Danish diplomat is also missing after Saturday's devastating suicide bomb attack on the Marriott hotel, the Danish foreign ministry said Sunday.
"We are concentrating right now on finding on finding the Dane who has been missing since yesterday," Klavs Holm, ambassador for public diplomacy at the Danish foreign ministry, told AFP.
The bombing also came on the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's call for Pakistani Muslims to unleash Jihad or holy war against the government, a vital ally in the US-led "war on terror" that has cracked down on militants.
The brazen attack appeared to have been timed to inflict maximum casualties, ripping through the hotel when it was packed with families having dinner to break the daily fast in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
"It has the hallmarks of al-Qaeda," a senior official involved in the investigation told AFP. "It was an al-Qaeda style bombing."
The official said investigators believe up to 600 kilos (1,300 pounds) of explosives were packed into the truck, which exploded in a giant fireball at the security gate and tore an enormous crater in the ground.
The blast ignited gas cylinders in the kitchen, setting off a blaze that swept through the 300-room hotel. A security official said some victims leapt to their deaths rather than be burnt alive on the upper floors.
Pieces of human flesh were still scattered outside the hotel on Sunday morning. The intense heat inside kept rescuers, who were wearing masks and chemical protection suits, from getting inside most of the destroyed building.
A senior security official said at least 53 people were dead. The government put the confirmed toll at 53 Sunday, and it was not known how many people might still be unaccounted for.
Bodies pulled from the debris were burnt beyond recognition.
The hotel was popular with politicians, foreigners and the Pakistani elite.
The bombing is a serious challenge to new President Asif Ali Zardari, who faces a desperate battle against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants whose campaign of violence has killed 1,300 people in Pakistan this year.
"We will rid the country of this cancer," Zardari, who took office less than two weeks ago, said in a message to the nation after the attack. "I appeal to all democratic forces to come and save Pakistan."
"We will not be deterred by these cowards, Pakistanis are brave and fearless people, they are not afraid of death," he said.
"I promise you that such actions by these cowards will not lower our resolve," he said.
But analysts say the ability to carry out such a massive bombing at one of the most secure sites in the capital, not far from parliament and the prime minister's residence, is an unmistakable sign of the militants' reach.
Zardari's predecessor Pervez Musharraf turned Pakistan into a close ally of the United States after the September 11 attacks in 2001, and the government has waged a crackdown on militants in Pakistan's volatile northwest.
That campaign has drawn the ire of many in Pakistan, the world's only nuclear-armed Islamic nation, and critics say elements of the army and intelligence services are supporting the militants.
Many militants poured into the northwest tribal areas from across the border in Afghanistan when the United States invaded after 9/11, and much of the region is now effectively outside the Pakistani government's control.
The administration of US President George W Bush says militants are using the area as a base of operations to lead the deadly insurgency in Afghanistan, and US forces have fired missiles and even raided the region.
But even Zardari has warned that US operations on Pakistani soil are unacceptable. The perceived violation of sovereignty, and the Pakistan army's campaign against militants, have infuriated many Pakistanis.
Exactly one year ago on September 20, Bin Laden called on Muslims in Pakistan "to carry out Jihad and fighting to remove (Musharraf), his government, his army and those who help him.”