ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — More than any other terrorist attack in this volatile country, the devastating truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel over the weekend has presented government and military leaders here with a stark choice: Go all out against extremists or risk the nation's collapse into chaos.
That is the growing consensus among many Pakistani analysts and commentators, who fear that without rapid, determined and ironfisted action by officials and security forces, this nuclear-armed land is in danger of becoming a failed state, with Islamic radicals in control.
On Monday, the government described just how close those militants may have come to dealing Pakistan an almost fatal blow. A senior official said that President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani and top Cabinet members were supposed to dine together at the Marriott on Saturday night -- but switched venues just before the bombing.
"At the eleventh hour, the president and prime minister decided that the venue would be the prime minister's house," Rehman Malik, the Interior Ministry's top official, told reporters. "It saved the entire leadership."
Malik did not explain what inspired the change in plans. A representative of the hotel later cast doubt on the statement, telling the Associated Press that there were no plans for a government dinner at the Marriott on Saturday.
Malik's disclosure, if true, betrayed the alarming extent to which militants have beefed up their intelligence capabilities and upgraded their planning and operations accordingly. Local media reported that Gilani would hold an emergency meeting today to discuss tightening security to prevent more attacks like Saturday's.
The suicide bombing of the Marriott, an icon of social and political wheeling and dealing here in the Pakistani capital, killed 53 people, including at least two Americans, and wounded more than 250.
The U.S. Central Command on Monday identified one of the slain Americans as Air Force Maj. Rodolfo I. Rodriguez, 34, of El Paso. The name of the other had not yet been released.
Robert S. Prucha, deputy director of public affairs for the Central Command, said a number of other members of the U.S. military were at the hotel and suffered minor scrapes and cuts. None required hospitalization, he said.
No verifiable claim of responsibility has surfaced, although a shadowy group called Fedayeen Islam told Al Arabiya television that it was behind the attack. From the ferocity and size of the bombing, suspicion has fallen on Al Qaeda and a movement known as the Pakistani Taliban.
