Interior ministry
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. "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.