Suicide Blast Rips Through Parking Lot of Pakistan Hotel 

ISLAMABAD - Authorities in southwestern Pakistan said Wednesday that a powerful bomb had ripped through the parking area of a five-star hotel, killing at least four people and wounding about a dozen others.

The outlawed Pakistani Taliban militant group through its social media outlets claimed responsibility for the late-night suicide bombing at Serena Hotel in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province. In a prepared statement, the militants identified a meeting of local and Chinese foreign officials as the intended target. Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the attack as a terrorist act. He told a local television channel that the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan and his delegation were staying in the hotel, but he said the foreigners were attending an event elsewhere in the city at the time of the blast.