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DUBAI: A shadowy group calling itself ‘Fedayeen of Islam’ has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel in a telephone call to al Arabiya television, the channel said on Monday.
The Dubai-based station’s correspondent in Islamabad said he received a text message on his mobile phone showing a telephone number, which he called and then heard a recording in which the group admitted launching Saturday’s attack.

The speaker on the recording, who identified himself as Ahmad Shah Abdali, spoke in English ‘with a South Asian accent,’ he said.
A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with more than half a tonne of explosives into the security gates of the luxury hotel, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 260 in a massive fireball.
Al-Arabiya, a pan-Arab news channel, said Abdali listed several conditions for “halting attacks against US interests in Pakistan.”
These included “an end to cooperation” between Washington and Islamabad, “an end to operations (by the Pakistani military) in tribal areas,” and the release of all militants held in US prisons.
The authenticity of the claim could not be verified, the channel said.
The speaker alleged that the attack was carried out by a ‘martyrdom-seeker’ - suicide bomber - while 250 US Marines and American and NATO officials were in the hotel.
Pakistan has blamed al Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies based in Pakistan’s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan for the attack, and investigators said they were now hunting an Islamabad-based al Qaeda cell.

source: dawn.com