ISLAMABAD: After the United States, Saudi Arabia and Australia also issued security advisories for citizens living in and visiting Pakistan, as militant attacks have picked up in the South Asian country in recent weeks.
The US Embassy in Islamabad on Sunday warned its staff of a possible attack on Americans at a top hotel in the Pakistani capital as the city was already on high alert following a suicide bombing earlier in the week.
Pakistani Taliban militants have been waging a campaign of bombings and suicide attacks for over a decade in a bid to run the country under a harsh brand of Islamic law. Since last month, they have ramped up attacks after calling off a cease-fire brokered by the Afghan Taliban in May.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Pakistan called on its citizens to exercise caution.
“The embassy of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan would like to warn all citizens residing and visiting the Islamic Republic of Pakistan of the need to take caution and not go out except for necessity, given that the authorities in the capital, Islamabad, have raised the security alert to the highest level,” the embassy said in a statement on Twitter.
In case of an emergency, contact the embassy or the Consulate General in Karachi, the embassy said.
The Australian high commissioner also said officials in Islamabad had been advised to increase vigilance and limit travel within the city.
“You should exercise heightened vigilance and monitor the media for latest updates,” Neil Hawkins said on Twitter.
On Sunday, the US embassy said it was aware of information that “unknown individuals are possibly plotting to attack Americans at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad sometime during the holidays.”
The advisory banned American personnel from visiting the Marriott Hotel over the holidays and urged all personnel to refrain from non-essential travel in Islamabad during the holiday season.
In 2008, at the peak of the Taliban’s insurgency, a truck laden with 600kg of explosives blew up outside Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel, killing at least 53 people and wounding more than 260.
In 2009, a suicide bomb attack on Peshawar’s top hotel killed at least seven people, including two UN workers, a Russian man and Philippine woman, at the Pearl Continental, a hotel popular with VIPs and foreigners in the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The embassies’ directives come after a suicide bombing in a residential area of the capital killed a police officer on Friday. The explosion happened when police stopped a taxi for inspection during a patrol. According to the police, a rear seat passenger detonated explosives he was carrying, blowing up the vehicle.
Militants with the Pakistani Taliban, who are separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s rulers, later claimed the attack.
Islamabad’s administration has since put the city on high alert, banning public gatherings and processions, even as campaigns are ongoing for upcoming local elections. Police have stepped up patrols and established snap checkpoints to inspect vehicles across the city.
