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Islamabad Marriot Terrorist Bombing

All very valid points, the ones about diplomatic vehicles is very true and while I was sceptical about the boxes initially i really am now pondering, why? And why so many?

All I know is that my friend was on the security team at Marriott and he embraced martyrdom. It would have been decent of this government to consider the families and friends of the bereaved and give this event a proper enquiry magar is mey be do numbri kar rahain han! Kya eik aafat sey baaz nahi aye ye?

Sir till the time we have unelected dubious people like Rehman Malik who says that well foriegners were injured only and the man has exploded outside while the foreigners are save hence is a "bari kamyabi ha" hokumat ki :tsk::tsk:

What will you expect other than do numberi from such people.
 
Lies of Rehman Malik Exposed

Page last updated at 14:59 GMT, Monday, 22 September 2008 15:59 UK


Marriott 'escape' report denied



The owner of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad has denied that Pakistan's top leaders had been due to dine there before Saturday's huge bomb attack.

He was responding to comments by interior ministry chief Rehman Malik.

Mr Malik said the president, prime minister and military chiefs were going to eat there but changed venue at the last minute.


A suicide bomb devastated the hotel killing at least 53 people and injuring more than 266 people.

The Marriott owner, Saddrudin Hashwani, told the BBC there never was a booking for a government dinner at the Marriott hotel on the night of the bomb attack nor any plans for a government function.
Mr Hashwani owns a string of hotels in Pakistan and is one of the country's most successful businessmen.

Earlier on Monday, Mr Malik told journalists that President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani were planning to dine at the Marriott before a late change of plan.

The function was not held at the Marriott, thus the whole leadership was saved

Rehman Malik
Pakistani interior ministry


'We are all in pain and agony'
Pakistan troops 'repel US raid'

"The president and the prime minister changed the venue to the prime minister's house. The function was not held at the Marriott, thus the whole leadership was saved." He did not say why the dinner plans were changed.

In other developments, it was reported that Pakistani troops fired on US helicopters that violated Pakistani airspace near the border with Afghanistan on Sunday night.

Tensions between the US and Pakistan have risen in recent weeks amid US accusations that Pakistan is not doing enough to combat Taleban militants in the region.

And in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, an Afghan diplomat was kidnapped and his driver killed, reports said.

Taleban suspects

The heavily guarded Islamabad Marriott was attacked at about 2000 (1500 GMT) on Saturday.

CCTV footage of the moments before the blast show a six-wheeler lorry ramming the security barrier at the hotel gate.

The bomb - believed to have been detonated in the lorry - left a six-metre (20ft) crater.


BBC NEWS | South Asia | Marriott 'escape' report denied
 
A Terrorist Group Fidaeen-E-Islam Claims Responsibility
A grop named Fidaeen-E-Islam has claimed responsibility of the bombing of Marriot hotel according to BBC News,a man named ahmed shah abdali sent a sms to them who said that we have targeted about 250 people including american marines and us and NATO officials,he also said that we have presented a humble gift to the muslims of pakistan afghanistan and whole world,we are happy to destroy a american stronghold.
Further infomation can be found in BBC urdu website.
It might be a dirty move by RAW to divert the matter towards FATA and trible areas.
 
After Marriott Hotel tragedy, its time for GOP to seriously get involved in fighting this menace of terrorism against civilians. PA has already stepped up offensive against militants in FATA but its GOP's responsibility to ‘build opinion’ of people seriously and to make them understand that this war is for survival of Pakistan. GOP should come openly, launch aggresive campaign and inform people of the hazards involved if we pull out of this war. GOP should brief people that how foreign hands are involved in funding of these militants.

GOP should not expect PA to launch mass awareness campaign against terrorism as its not their job. They are already doing best what they can. Just authorizing PA to launch operation is not enough as this need maximum mass support.

GOP should brief media about their limitations and should not be afraid of them. There are lot of things we can learn from actions of US Govt after 9-11. It is separate debate that who did it, was it internal job or really AQ was involved. Regardless of that we should appreciate how mass media was supporting US Govt and as a result it successfully built pro-war public opinion. Record numbers of protests were made against war in Afghanistan and Iraq worldwide but media by that time had built such a powerful image of righteousness of US Govt decision that every decision got implemented easily.

Because of weak GOP’s campaign an ordinary man seems confused as what is right and what is wrong. GOP needs to bring him out of it and he should be confidently saying that yes, I support this war as I don’t want my children dead in bomb blast one day and above all, it is for survival of Pakistan.

Media role, sorry to say, is disappointing to an alarming extent so far. I mean when Gen. Pervaz was in power, they used to bash him. Yesterday I saw on Geo TV that media was deliberately trying to insult Rehman Malik after Marriot Hotel blast. He is stupid and mostly unaware of what is going on around him, we know that, but at that particular time he was rightly saying that media should not project these terrorists as heroes. Geo TV started bashing him and clip appeared on screens as ‘breaking news’ that at the time of hotel blast, he was so scared that he lied on the ground and was shouting for help. He was not present in Marriot Hotel at the time of blast and probably was in PM House. Even Haimd Mir soon after asked him about this just to insult him and Rehman Malik replied it was not true.

Now this attitude needs to be stopped immediately. Even if an a.hole like Rehman Malik is saying something that is in national interest, he needs not to be insulted rather he needs to be listened carefully. Media dog needs to be trained so that it doesn’t bark unnecessarily. What kind of guidelines is media following? They doesn’t reflect in any of their reporting.

Mr. 10% needs to act fast as time is running out, not for jerk himself but for ordinary people of Pakistan and anti-Pakistan forces are taking full advantage of it.
 
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Now this attitude needs to be stopped immediately. Even if an a.hole like Rehman Malik is saying something that is in national interest, he needs not to be insulted rather he needs to be listened carefully. Media dog needs to be trained so that it doesn’t bark unnecessarily. What kind of guidelines is media following? They doesn’t reflect in any of their reporting.

Mr. 10% needs to act fast as time is running out, not for jerk himself but for ordinary people of Pakistan and anti-Pakistan forces are taking full advantage of it.


i agree with you about the stupid role of media since long. As i always say that media in Pakistan has become a corporate secter and all people here are making money.

Earlier only owners used to earn alot of money now it has been 200% more than what they had been earning. But on the other hand the employees are also having handsome pay specialy the electronic media people.

They try to win the race by giving so-called breaking news and in this bid they just feed alot of half-backed versions to the people.
'On top of that people like Hamid Mir and his likes create more confusion by stupid lies and sensations.

our media no doubt has become more agressive even agressive than the West but this has done alot of harm to Pakistan.


On the other hand umer, Mr Rehman Malik lied about proposed dinner for cabinet members at the hotel and gave impression that they escaped the attack.

This kind of attitude realy force people not to trust him.
 

Sept. 22, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon says an Air Force officer from Texas died in Pakistan of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device.

The Department of Defense announced Monday that 34-year-old Major Rodolfo I. Rodriguez of El Paso died Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Rodriguez was assigned to the 86th Construction & Training Squadron, Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
 
The fires are out at the Marriott, finally; there are brave declarations of building a better hotel on the same spot and promises that not one employee among those who survived the carnage will lose his or her job.


The questions to ask are: will a forensic and detailed examination of the hotel be carried out before it is pulled down inside of a few days? Will someone determine if the sprinkler systems that should be installed in every room and in every public area of the hotel were in working order? Did they work at all when the fires broke out?

Will some authority check if emergency exits to evacuate hotel guests were adequate? And if so, how many guests were safely evacuated? Indeed, will stock be taken of fire-extinguishing equipment inside the hotel, whether it was used or not, and when last the hotel carried out a fire drill?

The Islamic Republic’s security czar, Rehman Malik, has told us that the destruction was caused by more than a ton of a cocktail of RDX and TNT explosives, aluminium powder, and, as he put it, 'artallery' (artillery) shells, carried aboard a dumper truck.

By way of explaining the presence of the 12-ton truck in what can only be described as the younger sibling of Baghdad’s Green Zone, Rehman Malik tells us that dump trucks are allowed into Islamabad at night. But was it night-time that this particular dumper careened its way to the Marriott Hotel?
No sirs, it was barely night; it was just after iftar, and if I have my facts right no big truck is allowed into most cities before 10 pm. So, unless Islamabad the Beautiful has its own peculiar rules that allow these behemoths entry any time after 7 pm, Malik is dead wrong.

Add to that the fact that exactly at the time that the truck blew up taking countless lives — just wait for the real numbers to get out — every VVIP in Islamabad the Beautiful was tucking into a feast at the PM’s House barely a kilometre away. This was a massive security and intelligence failure, pure and simple, and heads must roll if their owners will not do the right thing and resign. Those who rate the ISI highly please note yet another failure of this mother of all agencies.

I watched every bit of the unfolding horror on TV; I watched first one room on the fourth floor catch fire; 20 minutes later another; an hour later 10 or 12; two or so hours after that a whole floor until some three hours later more than half the hotel was in flames.

I saw a man and a woman wave to the people below to attract their attention; I saw a man hold a baby up and point to it, begging for it to be saved. I thought about those guests who were staying in rooms that looked over the swimming pool at the back of the hotel and wondered what was going on there. On the morning after the event we read that the poor Czech ambassador who was living in the hotel and was killed in the fire called his embassy to say that he was trapped.

Not one fire truck of the two or three that the Capital Development Authority proudly acquired some time ago and showed off to the public appeared for at least two hours, the one that finally came poured a half-hearted stream of water into a room on the second floor. Not one guest was seen being rescued by firemen — there was only the customary chaos and confusion and shemozzle that attends every single crisis-like situation in the fatherland.

Will someone carry out an immediate enquiry into the reasons for the very late arrival of the Islamabad fire brigade at the hotel, and the completely inadequate fire-fighting/rescue millions of viewers witnessed on their TV screens? The CDA must be held to account and charges of criminal neglect placed at the door of those responsible. Indeed, let the ministry concerned, none other than Rehman Malik’s, face the music too. It should become clear to the babus that even goldmines can explode in your face.

Also, it must be drilled into their greedy little heads that merely tarting up Islamabad the Beautiful for the rich by building great big avenues and naming them after inconsequential bureaucrats is not enough. That very high up in the duties of a civic body is the safety of the people who live in a city.
It is not as if the CDA is the only culprit. All of the fancy National Disaster Management Authorities and National Disaster Management Commissions were conspicuous by their absence. Only the common, poor people who attend to the needs of and wait upon those that frolic in our star-rated hostelries — drivers, waiters, passers-by — could be seen helping where they could.
The only well-organised rescue team visible the next day was from the Aga Khan Disaster and Crisis Management. The brave and efficient men and women of this organisation were dressed as rescue teams should be dressed — in uniforms and hard hats; and equipped as rescue teams should be equipped — with sound-detecting equipment and all.

As usual, the Edhi ambulances were the first on the scene, followed by others, giving one new respect for that wonderful human being, Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi — may his tribe increase — who has so efficiently put such a great organisation together. In a recent article, I had suggested that sports in the country be handed over to Imran Khan. Let me in this one suggest that all the disaster management activities be handed over to Maulana Edhi.

Before I end, let me go back to fire-fighting. Not one of Pakistan’s cities has even a tenth of what is considered adequate fire-fighting and rescue equipment, or trained personnel for this hugely critical task. One F-16 costs something like $12m; initial research tells me a state-of-the-art, fully-equipped ladder fire truck costs approximately $1m. Could we please forego four F-16s and buy 48 fire trucks please? There are cheaper used/refurbished alternatives available; could we buy 100 of these fire-trucks please?

I, for one, would have no objections if the local agents of the F-16s are the local agents of the fire trucks too, so that the kickbacks stay where they should. It will make everything more palatable too.

In view of all of the foregoing, the Government of Pakistan ought to be hugely ashamed of itself.
 
Along the same lines as the above post by Dr.Umer:


Marriott blast no 9/11
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Mosharraf Zaidi

The atrocious attack at the Marriott hotel should have been Pakistan’s moment to cohere diverse political and regional tensions into a singular, solid and unshakeable national commitment to destroy terrorism. What’s happened since the attack has been a series of comedic missteps and misspeaks that represent the long road ahead for Pakistan, and the even longer road to understanding Pakistan that Barack Obama and John McCain better invest in, fast.

The prime minister, beholden to a presidency that is legally still in dictator-mode, insists the target was parliament and the Prime Minister’s House. The irrepressible Rehman Malik first insisted the target was the Marriott and the perpetrators were the Taliban. Farhatullah Babar apparently thought only lowly paid employees were victims. Sherry Rehman promised ‘resolve’. A little later, Rehman Malik struck again, insisting that the perpetrators were Al Qaeda. A little after that, once again, this time insisting that people needed to be patient, how he could know so soon. The latest gem is that the president (and prime minister), were set to dine at the Marriott. The obvious implication is that the PPP government succeeded in averting disaster.

Really? Disaster was averted? Someone tell the Czech ambassador’s grieving family, who probably never wanted him to take up the Islamabad post, but did anyway, rationalizing that Pakistan was too important to be left to second-choice diplomats. Someone tell the martyred security guards’ families, who thought they were joining a premium brand to protect the Ashraf-ul-Pakistaniat, not to serve as cannon fodder for the incompetence with which the global war on terror is being pursued. Someone tell the children that live in G-6 and F-6, who cannot sleep at night, because they have had their childhoods and innocence stained by the horror of flying glass and sonic booms.

Perhaps the light-headedness induced by being Pakistan’s first legitimately elected government in over a decade is too much to take for the PPP. That is why the party’s leadership is everywhere on TV, but nowhere on substance. Surely the poor people of Southern Punjab and rural Sindh deserve a better articulation of the three most important sentiments that the Pakistani state should be feeling now. What are those sentiments?

Remorse, vengeance, and commitment. The greatest remorse should be for the senseless loss of human life, for the physical and psychological injuries sustained, and for the dramatic economic impact that the Marriott attack will have. There should be another kind of remorse also, remorse for having dropped the ball. If the state ‘successfully averted disaster’ at the PM House and the presidency, then citizens might be concerned about where lie the priorities of their protectors (that’s what rural politics is about in Pakistan: protection). The most important element of remorse needs to be the deliberate and careful thought that such remorse should feed into a response
.

Pakistan’s response needs to be informed by the second sentiment: vengeance. The vengeance needs to be guided by a controlled but resolute and unflinching letting loose of destruction, demolition and termination of terrorists, their financiers, and their facilitators. Vengeance must not be angry, but it must speak clearly and loudly: there is no escaping Pakistan’s ability to defend itself. Currently, Pakistan has no vengeance agenda, leading to more brazen attacks with each new wave of violence.

This brings us to the third guiding sentiment that must drive Pakistan’s response to the Marriott attack: commitment. Pakistan needs to commit itself to the physical and operational rehabilitation of the state, and to the emotional and psychological rehabilitation of the victims of statelessness in FATA and state failure in instances of terror attacks in the settled areas. Pakistan needs to commit itself to purging itself of foreign policy dependence, and to the purging of its mosques and parliaments of war-mongering fanatics and radicals. That’s a lot of commitment.

While the PPP leadership jostles for airtime only to stumble over each other in betraying its incompetence, it is not a hopeless government. The government needs to demonstrate the kind of strong-footed confidence (that is the domain of elected governments) in prosecuting the war against those that seek to destroy the Pakistani way of life. Nobody said democracy works perfectly, but it needs to be protected so that it regains its rightful position as the definitive feature of the Pakistani way of life. In the rush for relevance within the PPP perhaps the competence gap was most ably demonstrated by the affable and sometimes brilliant Senator Enver Baig. He was first to declare the Marriott incident as Pakistan’s 9/11.

The senator is forgiven for speaking in the heat of the moment. This was no 9/11. Forget that 9/11 killed over 2,500 innocent civilians. Forget that it destroyed one of the world’s great monuments to innovation, and to freedom. Forget that it was an attack on New York City, the most economically relevant city in the world. 9/11 mobilized America’s sense of remorse, vengeance and commitment like it had not in over 50 years. That’s the real benchmark of whether an event can be qualified as 9/11 or not. Have the Americans made a mess of the response to 9/11? Absolutely – the war on terror is a total mess. But it is America’s war. Several major political forces in the US were forged in the ashes of 9/11, not least of which was New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Giuliani spoke for all of America on 9/11.

Unfortunately, not a single member of the legitimacy-stocked but competence-deficient PPP government has that kind of clarity
. Since it is democratic, the saving grace here is that the clouded speech and confused finger-pointing is a reflection of a nationally ubiquitous clouded judgment and ambiguous response. This was not Pakistan’s 9/11 because Pakistan cannot respond with remorse, vengeance and commitment. Presidential, elite, urban and expat outrage notwithstanding, this is, simply put, still not Pakistan’s war. If Friday’s presidential debate at Ole Miss is going to be about Pakistan, Joe Biden better bring rosary beads for McCain and Obama. This war is far from over, and Pakistan is far from ready
.

The writer is an independent political economist. Email: mosharraf@ gmail.com
 
Hunt on for two explosives-laden trucks in capital

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: Police are searching for two explosives-laden trucks in the federal capital, Daily Times learnt on Tuesday.

Sources said intelligence agencies had informed the police that three trucks loaded with explosives had entered the federal capital. One of them targeted the Marriott Hotel on Saturday, while whereabouts of the other two are not known.

The sources said the ‘missing’ trucks were still present in the city, adding that a risk of strikes by them had forced the police to put the security on high alert, increase personnel deployment near important buildings, erect pickets on key roads and begin intensive patrolling across Is
lamabad.

Vehicles, especially trucks, were being searched by the police at the pickets, the sources said, adding the police were keeping a close watch on hotels and guesthouses.

Meanwhile, the Federal Interior Ministry has warned that banned militant groups could strike in Karachi as well as other cities of the country, Daily Times learnt on Tuesday.

Following this, Additional Home Secretary for Law Enforcement Dr Shafqat Abbasi has written a letter to Sindh Police Inspector General (IG) Sultan Salahuddin Babar Khattak and ordered him to ensure foolproof security measures for foreigners, especially Chinese nationals and their installations, sources said on condition of anonymity.


“We have ordered the Sindh IG to provide foolproof security to all foreign nationals and sensitive government and foreign installations,” Abbasi said.
fazal sher/faraz khan
 
The fires are out at the Marriott, finally; there are brave declarations of building a better hotel on the same spot and promises that not one employee among those who survived the carnage will lose his or her job.

The questions to ask are: will a forensic and detailed examination of the hotel be carried out before it is pulled down inside of a few days? Will someone determine if the sprinkler systems that should be installed in every room and in every public area of the hotel were in working order? Did they work at all when the fires broke out?

Will some authority check if emergency exits to evacuate hotel guests were adequate? And if so, how many guests were safely evacuated? Indeed, will stock be taken of fire-extinguishing equipment inside the hotel, whether it was used or not, and when last the hotel carried out a fire drill?

The Islamic Republic’s security czar, Rehman Malik, has told us that the destruction was caused by more than a ton of a cocktail of RDX and TNT explosives, aluminium powder, and, as he put it, 'artallery' (artillery) shells, carried aboard a dumper truck.

By way of explaining the presence of the 12-ton Marriott Hotel?
No sirs, it was barely night; it was just after iftar, and truck in what can only be described as the younger sibling of Baghdad’s Green Zone, Rehman Malik tells us that dump trucks are allowed into Islamabad at night. But was it night-time that this particular dumper careened its way to the if I have my facts right no big truck is allowed into most cities before 10 pm. So, unless Islamabad the Beautiful has its own peculiar rules that allow these behemoths entry any time after 7 pm, Malik is dead wrong.

Add to that the fact that exactly at the time that the truck blew up taking countless lives — just wait for the real numbers to get out — every VVIP in Islamabad the Beautiful was tucking into a feast at the PM’s House barely a kilometre away. This was a massive security and intelligence failure, pure and simple, and heads must roll if their owners will not do the right thing and resign. Those who rate the ISI highly please note yet another failure of this mother of all agencies.

I watched every bit of the unfolding horror on TV; I watched first one room on the fourth floor catch fire; 20 minutes later another; an hour later 10 or 12; two or so hours after that a whole floor until some three hours later more than half the hotel was in flames.

I saw a man and a woman wave to the people below to attract their attention; I saw a man hold a baby up and point to it, begging for it to be saved. I thought about those guests who were staying in rooms that looked over the swimming pool at the back of the hotel and wondered what was going on there. On the morning after the event we read that the poor Czech ambassador who was living in the hotel and was killed in the fire called his embassy to say that he was trapped.

Not one fire truck of the two or three that the Capital Development Authority proudly acquired some time ago and showed off to the public appeared for at least two hours, the one that finally came poured a half-hearted stream of water into a room on the second floor. Not one guest was seen being rescued by firemen — there was only the customary chaos and confusion and shemozzle that attends every single crisis-like situation in the fatherland.

Will someone carry out an immediate enquiry into the reasons for the very late arrival of the Islamabad fire brigade at the hotel, and the completely inadequate fire-fighting/rescue millions of viewers witnessed on their TV screens? The CDA must be held to account and charges of criminal neglect placed at the door of those responsible. Indeed, let the ministry concerned, none other than Rehman Malik’s, face the music too. It should become clear to the babus that even goldmines can explode in your face.

Also, it must be drilled into their greedy little heads that merely tarting up Islamabad the Beautiful for the rich by building great big avenues and naming them after inconsequential bureaucrats is not enough. That very high up in the duties of a civic body is the safety of the people who live in a city.
It is not as if the CDA is the only culprit. All of the fancy National Disaster Management Authorities and National Disaster Management Commissions were conspicuous by their absence. Only the common, poor people who attend to the needs of and wait upon those that frolic in our star-rated hostelries — drivers, waiters, passers-by — could be seen helping where they could.
The only well-organised rescue team visible the next day was from the Aga Khan Disaster and Crisis Management. The brave and efficient men and women of this organisation were dressed as rescue teams should be dressed — in uniforms and hard hats; and equipped as rescue teams should be equipped — with sound-detecting equipment and all.

As usual, the Edhi ambulances were the first on the scene, followed by others, giving one new respect for that wonderful human being, Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi — may his tribe increase — who has so efficiently put such a great organisation together. In a recent article, I had suggested that sports in the country be handed over to Imran Khan. Let me in this one suggest that all the disaster management activities be handed over to Maulana Edhi.

Before I end, let me go back to fire-fighting. Not one of Pakistan’s cities has even a tenth of what is considered adequate fire-fighting and rescue equipment, or trained personnel for this hugely critical task. One F-16 costs something like $12m; initial research tells me a state-of-the-art, fully-equipped ladder fire truck costs approximately $1m. Could we please forego four F-16s and buy 48 fire trucks please? There are cheaper used/refurbished alternatives available; could we buy 100 of these fire-trucks please?

I, for one, would have no objections if the local agents of the F-16s are the local agents of the fire trucks too, so that the kickbacks stay where they should. It will make everything more palatable too.

In view of all of the foregoing, the Government of Pakistan ought to be hugely ashamed of itself.


This was a fantastic article and whilst I will not try to defend the abysmal performance of the Civil Defence Force, CDA, and NDMA I just wanted to make a few things clear.

As I stated before yes a detailed Post Blast Investigation was conducted at the Marriott hotel following the blast I am including a picture of a post blast investigator at scene conducting "forensic" testing: (See Attachment)

Secondly the writer correctly mentioned sprinkler systems, now lets be simple about this, what do sprinklers need in order to extinguish a fire "Water" as we know that the external lines were ruptured following the blast "no water, no fire suppression".

I know the CSO if Marriott and did a security assessment of this building for a client back in 2006 and the hotel had the relevant procedures in place, I agree that the Fire Engineering was poor because if you were at the top floor you would need to take the stair case to the lobby before exiting either from pool side, the front exit, baker exit or service exit (used by staff) - This was the same problem in WTC, now given the situation perhaps people panicked "wouldn’t you"...

Okay I am not trying to defend Rehman Malik (he is an Idiot) but with regards to questioning the use of artillery shells to construct the IED (where did you think they would get that much military grade high explosive from? A magical tree... And to back up my statement I am including a picture of a IED(in Iraq clearly showing the use of Art Shells in the construction of device, whilst I wont go into too much detail how it's constructed you can see how militants use such things: (See Attachment)

I agree with the author that heads must roll within State Services, yes the CDA should be issued a warning and criminal action should be taken against senior officers as only 1 of the 3 appliances (Fire Trucks) the CDA actually worked (3) trucks for the entire capital - Pathetic!

Haan, the author is very right (WHY) was the NDMA not present or some senior officer from the NDMA not at scene, surely they should do something to justify their hefty pay packets - Not a single thing, instead in the morning when everyone was dead the asked soldiers (engineer corps) to come and inspect the building and search mission...

The only well-organised rescue team visible the next day was from the Aga Khan Disaster and Crisis Management. The brave and efficient men and women of this organisation were dressed as rescue teams should be dressed — in uniforms and hard hats; and equipped as rescue teams should be equipped — with sound-detecting equipment and all.

Sir, you are very wrong... AKDN's (Focus Team) arrived on the second day as a mere publicity stunt! What Rescue are you going to do? Why do you need vibraphone (an acoustic search tool used to detect faint sounds in collapsed buildings) moreover who are you going to rescue? Everyone has either fled or died... So why call it a Rescue Operation, LOL it is a Recovery Operation (Not Rescue, and this can be done by local people, no need to send in a HIGH and Mighty RESCUE TEAM) I think this is the part of the article that was perhaps PAID Advertisement!

Besides when it comes to rescue you have a few things to consider:

Survival Rule of 3's:

3 Mins without Air
3 Days without Water
3 Weeks without Food

(This is a general guide, if you don’t have these you will not survive) –

Now fire's don’t just kill by burning but they also kill by asphyxiation (the acrid air filled with Carbon Monoxide enters the lungs, blocks the alveoli and increases the Sp02 (Carbon level in the blood, so your body is oxygen starved) when this happens you will eventually either die of asphalting or carbon monoxide poisoning.

So when you have a blast you have to consider the following:

1) The Golden Hour - This is the crucial hour in which the patient must be transported to hospital and surgery begun in order to save his/her life

1. A) Part of the golden Hour is the Platinum 10 Minutes, this is the time the ambulance crew have to rescue the person and get them to hospital to ensure they do not take up too much of his Golden Hour.

2) When you have a fire you have to consider the following tactics:
Risk Assess
Utilities (Gas, Water Etc...)
Fire Suppression
Rescue
Extrication of casualty from building

2. A) Also (sadly) you have to triage (French: for Sorting) if you think according to your risk assessment that the person in the smoking building has been their for more then 15 minutes and if 3 mins without air can impair survival whilst 15 min without air means you are medically brain-dead, then according to the fire-fighters code you are "lost"...

Now given all this the real rescue was done by ordinary members of the public 1122 Islamabad which is called CDA Cares were at the scene day 1, the were able to save countless lives with the help of almighty ALLAH (I speak as a medic when I say this), then we also had members of RESCUE 1122 Pindi who came to help their counter-parts from Islamabad (very professional men and women)

As usual, the Edhi ambulances were the first on the scene, followed by others, giving one new respect for that wonderful human being

Again sir, I was watching just like you and you are right EDHI is a wonderful organization this does not quantify that the entire DM structure of Pakistan should be surrendered to Edhi Trust; however I entirely agree with you that the present structure needs change to increase our resilience and response capacity for the future.

And I would like to extend an arm to all our brothers and sisters in Rawalpindi/Islamabad and Pakistan itself, if you would like to volunteer with our search and rescue team (we are training) then please visit our website dpart-sar.info we would be honoured to have you as members and perhaps together we can make a difference.

“The author is a Search and Rescue Engineer and Disaster Risk Management specialist with an International Search and Rescue NGO.”
 
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One F-16 costs something like $12m; initial research tells me a state-of-the-art, fully-equipped ladder fire truck costs approximately $1m. Could we please forego four F-16s and buy 48 fire trucks please? There are cheaper used/refurbished alternatives available; could we buy 100 of these fire-trucks please?

Rescue Ranger - Thank you very much for your nice and detailed brief.

Article has some very good points but I strongly disagree with the statement quoted above from the original article.

I am sorry to say but it has become our mentality to "hit" Pak Armed Forces one way or another whether required or not. Writer could have easily mentioned carelessness in provision of funds to fire department with out mentioning F-16. What about Zardari's 60m$ recently released? What about luxurious Mercedes and Hummer Federal and Provincial govts are having?

Why always we need to compromise on something that should never be compromised - Pakistan's Defense?

Very unfortunate display of mentality specially when emotions are running high.
 
Rescue Ranger - Thank you very much for your nice and detailed brief.

Article has some very good points but I strongly disagree with the statement quoted above from the original article.

I am sorry to say but it has become our mentality to "hit" Pak Armed Forces one way or another whether required or not. Writer could have easily mentioned carelessness in provision of funds to fire department with out mentioning F-16. What about Zardari's 60m$ recently released? What about luxurious Mercedes and Hummer Federal and Provincial govts are having?

Why always we need to compromise on something that should never be compromised - Pakistan's Defense?

Very unfortunate display of mentality specially when emotions are running high.

Dr. Umer,

Your very welcome and yes you are right, I don’t know what is wrong with such authors honestly i am no conspiracy nut but ever since the whole Geo episode i hardly ever rely on English daily's for impartial info, the most reliable reading can usually be found in the cheapest Urdu daily :lol: I read both and try to draw my own conclusions...

Another thing that ticked me off, the author was paying far too much lip service to the NGO community especially Edhi and AKDN (Although I suspect he got a hefty chq from AKDN for that much praise) :lol:

And the way he lambastes the military, one thing i forgot to mention, theek hain humari army looked basic in those pictures but those Jawans and officers were "Engineer Corps" and are trained in Search and Rescue under the Asian Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response.

I personally hate it when we undermine our own national assets and to me personally the Military is the biggest asset Pakistan has, its the only reason we can live free, hear the Azan in the morning and have a identity. If these idiots get their way we will be under the boots of Indian and Americans (God Forbid)...

:pakistan:
 
Dr. Umer,

Your very welcome and yes you are right, I don’t know what is wrong with such authors honestly i am no conspiracy nut but ever since the whole Geo episode i hardly ever rely on English daily's for impartial info, the most reliable reading can usually be found in the cheapest Urdu daily :lol: I read both and try to draw my own conclusions...

Another thing that ticked me off, the author was paying far too much lip service to the NGO community especially Edhi and AKDN (Although I suspect he got a hefty chq from AKDN for that much praise) :lol:

And the way he lambastes the military, one thing i forgot to mention, theek hain humari army looked basic in those pictures but those Jawans and officers were "Engineer Corps" and are trained in Search and Rescue under the Asian Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response.

I personally hate it when we undermine our own national assets and to me personally the Military is the biggest asset Pakistan has, its the only reason we can live free, hear the Azan in the morning and have a identity. If these idiots get their way we will be under the boots of Indian and Americans (God Forbid)...

:pakistan:

Agreed :enjoy::pakistan:
 
:) Well nothing is wrong with such kind of people having more benefits by dancing to outsiders' tune. You will find such segmengt in every field in their bid to prove themselves as liberal minded the only thing they find to prove is malign your own country even if their points are not valid. It gives them some face uplift as liberals and open minded people among west.

Anyway why dont they question the apathay of civil administeration that is responsible for such tasks.
Every millions are provided to them for carrying out their assigned tasks but we fail to see any progress no there is any clue where these millions of funds go every year.


Rescue Ranger - Thank you very muhch for your nice and detailed brief.

Article has some very good points but I strongly disagree with the statement quoted above from the original article.

I am sorry to say but it has become our mentality to "hit" Pak Armed Forces one way or another whether required or not. Writer could have easily mentioned carelessness in provision of funds to fire department with out mentioning F-16. What about Zardari's 60m$ recently released? What about luxurious Mercedes and Hummer Federal and Provincial govts are having?

Why always we need to compromise on something that should never be compromised - Pakistan's Defense?

Very unfortunate display of mentality specially when emotions are running high.
 

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