PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Investigators searched a wrecked luxury hotel in northwestern Pakistan for evidence Wednesday after a bold homicide bombing killed 18 people, including aid workers, in what the U.N. condemned as a “heinous terrorist attack.”
Elsewhere in the volatile region, security forces killed 70 suspected militants in an area close to two major Taliban tribal strongholds, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on the Peshawar Pearl Continental, but the blast followed Taliban threats to carry out major attacks in large cities to avenge an army offensive against insurgents in the nearby Swat Valley.
At least three homicide attackers shot their way past guards and set off the explosion late Tuesday outside the hotel, a favorite spot for foreigners and well-off Pakistanis and a site that the U.S. was considering for its consulate.
The attack reduced a section of the hotel to concrete rubble and twisted steel and left a huge crater in a parking lot. Senior police official Safwat Ghayur said counterterrorism experts, police and intelligence agents were combing the rubble for clues Wednesday.
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