[4] The majority of the casualties were Pakistanis; at least five foreign nationals were also killed (including The Czech ambassador to Pakistan, Dr. Ivo Žďárek) and fifteen others reported injured.

Only a few months after the hotel's bombing owner Sadruddin Hashwani had arranged a re-construction, and the Islamabad Marriott reopened officially on 28 December 2008.

[10] About two-thirds of the building caught fire as a result of the explosion after a natural gas pipe was blown open, and the reception area was completely destroyed.

[6][10][11][12] The owner of the Marriott Hotel, Hashoo Group,[13] owned by Sadruddin Hashwani, said the truck carrying the bomb had been stopped at the front barrier.

[22] Pakistan's top leaders were to have been in the Islamabad Marriott hotel when it was bombed; instead, having changed their plans at the last minute, they gathered for dinner at the Prime Minister's house, a few hundred yards from the explosion, following President Asif Ali Zardari's maiden address to a joint session of parliament.

[23] "The national assembly speaker had arranged a dinner for the entire leadership – for the president, prime minister and armed services chiefs – at the Marriott that day", the Interior ministry head, Rehman Malik, told reporters.

[25] The Pakistani government released the CCTV footage of the attack at a press conference saying that a six-wheeled dumper truck filled with explosives and an accelerant pulled up at the gate and first caught fire before exploding a few minutes later.

[34] An unnamed senior security official stated that about 30 U.S. Marines, scheduled to go to Afghanistan, were staying at the hotel, and they were believed to have been the targets of the bombing.

[36] According to the Dawn, a number of the marines who stayed at the hotel sustained injuries; the newspaper also cited an unnamed law enforcement official stating "personnel of a U.S. security agency" were in all likelihood a target of the attack.

An MP for the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, Syed Mumtaz Alam Gillani, has come forward with testimony evidencing a purportedly serious security breach at the Marriott on the night between 16 and 17 September, several days before the bombing.

[39][40][41] Alam Gillani and two friends are said to have witnessed several large steel boxes being unloaded from a U.S. Embassy truck by a group of U.S. Marines and, according to someone at the hotel, transported to the fourth and fifth floors.

The hotel security staff did not respond to Alam Gilani's protests as they passively watched what was taking place, not being allowed to go near the boxes by the U.S.

Confronted with the activities of the U.S. Marines on the night of 16/17 September, embassy spokesperson Lou Fintor stated: "A team of support personnel often and routinely precede and/or accompany certain U.S. government officials.

He added, "I believe that the UN General Assembly annual session is the most useless event in the world where leaders go to listen to their own speeches.

The BBC reported that Pakistan was an important ally of the United States in its "war on terror", but that it had disagreements over tactics and had complained about US raids from Afghanistan.

[46] Following an apparent power vacuum as a result of the stepping down of former president Pervez Musharraf earlier in the month, U.S. missile-strikes had increased, culminating in the Baghar Cheena airstrike on 17 September.

[51] On 1 January 2009 a missile fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle killed al-Qaeda's chief of operations for Pakistan, Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, and his aide, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan.

[57] A panel that the government had formed, consisting of police officials and experts from security agencies to probe the attack, presented a preliminary report to the Prime Minister.

The Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah also admitted to the Senate's Standing Committee on his ministry that the blast was the result of a defective security system.

[citation needed] A man by the name of Dr. Usman, possibly the same individual, was involved in the attack on the Sri Lanka national cricket team and the raid against the Pakistani Army Headquarters.