ISLAMABAD, Nov 24: Just two months after the Marriott Hotel’s suicide attack, the Foreign Office here on Monday issued fresh warnings to members of the expatriate community informing them that threats of terrorist attacks were again high in the federal capital and Peshawar.

Diplomatic sources told Dawn that Foreign Office believed that security threats to foreigners in the federal capital had once again resurfaced after a brief calm since the Marriott incident.

“We have been asked to restrict our movements in both the cities,” an official of a European Union (EU) member country told Dawn.

He said the new warnings had been faxed to all the foreign missions in Islamabad and Peshawar. Security threats in Peshawar are even higher compared to Islamabad.

“This is not a verbal warning, but an official one. We are really concerned and are taking extreme caution while moving around,” the official said.

The warnings to expatriates have come just two days after Saturday night’s explosions near Alhamra Cultural Complex, Lahore, to sabotage the World Performing Arts Festival being held there.

On September 22, soon after the suicide bomb blast at Marriott, Pakistan’s Foreign Office and the United Nations had advised members of the expatriate community in the federal capital to stay away from markets and restaurants and to restrict their movements to the less populated posh sectors of the city.

They had issued new security guidelines for diplomats, other staff of foreign missions and their families against traveling outside Islamabad.

They have been told to keep clear of places where police or other law enforcers are deployed including mosques and other religious places.

An official of the development organisation funded by an EU-member country said almost the entire Rawalpindi city had been made off-limits to the diplomatic community, as the garrison city had been declared a ‘security red zone’ and traveling on Islamabad Highway and Murree Road as ‘most insecure’ in the security guidelines.

The September guidelines had arrived at foreign missions after the death of Czech ambassador Ivo Zderek and his friend in the inferno at Marriott. Two US marines had also been reportedly killed in the blast.

The official said the diplomatic community had already been advised to avoid visiting populated sectors and business centres including Karachi Company, Peshawar Mor, G-8, G-10, G-11 Markaz, Melody, Aabpara and all vegetable and weekly bazaars.

Restaurants of any kind, even those located in posh sectors, are potential ‘soft targets’ for terrorists, according to the security guidelines.

Since the blast at Marriott, extra men of Frontier Constabulary have been deployed at the embassies located outside the fortified Diplomatic Enclave. Some of these missions are hurrying up with plans to erect their own buildings inside the Diplomatic Enclave, which is reasonably a more secure place than the posh sectors of the federal capital.