A SUICIDE truck bomber killed at least 60 people in the centre of Islamabad last night and injured up to 250 when he drove his pickup into the upmarket Marriott hotel in the centre of the city.

The huge blast was caused by a one-ton bomb driven into the heavily guarded high-security sector of the city, which includes all the principal government buildings.

The blast left a 30ft crater and uprooted trees. Dozens of cars were destroyed.

Two British adults and two children were receiving treatment last night for injuries received in the blast. A young woman of 22 was unconscious in hospital and a man of 45 was receiving treatment for an eye injury. Both are employed at the British high commission in the city.

The death toll is expected to rise into the hundreds — the ground floor of the hotel was packed with 500 Muslims marking the end of their day’s fasting for Ramadan.

“Everybody started screaming,” said an eyewitness named Abbasi, in between calling out for any survivors left lying under the rubble of the lobby, as fire spread through the floors.

“I pulled out 16 wounded people but didn’t see any dead,” said the young waiter, his white jacket stained with blood.

Walking past reception, Rehan Ahmed, an executive in his thirties, saw a woman employee killed by flying glass as she stood by the scanners used to check people coming in.

“It was like hell,” Ahmed said, his suit jacket torn.

“It was like scenes from a movie.”

It was the most devastating attack yet by Islamist militants in the Pakistani capital, and the second on the Marriott hotel in two years.

Many of the 250 wounded were in a critical condition.

“I don’t know how I got out of there. It was panic all around,” said Imtiaz Gul, a journalist, his eyebrows covered with dust after fleeing the Iftar fast-breaking reception.

The Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, said in a television statement to the nation that terrorism was “a cancer” that Pakistan was determined to fight. The president had been due to break the Ramadan fast in the centre of the city but changed his plans at the last minute.

David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, said the bombing would only reinforce Britain’s determination to combat terrorism in the country.

“This latest bombing attack in Islamabad is yet another shocking and disgraceful attack without justification,” Miliband said. “Such an indiscriminate and brutal act of terror deserves the condemnation of the entire international community. My condolences and sympathies go out to those who have suffered as a result of this atrocity.”

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, who recently visited Pakistan, said: “I utterly condemn the terrible attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.”

President George W Bush added his condemnation. “I strongly condemn the terrorist bombing in Islamabad that targeted and killed many innocents,” he said. “This attack is a reminder of the ongoing threat faced by Pakistan, the United States and all those who stand against violent extremism.”

Bush is due to meet with Zardari in New York on Tuesday before the United Nations general assembly.

The bombing was the third attack on the American hotel chain in Pakistan in 2½ years. It came as the US stepped up strikes against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

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