UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned on Tuesday the terrorist attack on a luxury hotel in Pakistan, in which a UN staff member was among the dead.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Ban said he was saddened by the large numbers of dead and wounded, which included Aleksandar Vorkapic, a staff member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Vorkapic was part of an emergency team recently deployed to Pakistan to help with the current displacement crisis, Ban said. "Once again, a dedicated staff member of the United Nations is among the victims of a heinous terrorist attack which no cause can justify."

The secretary-general extended his condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Pakistan, and wished those injured a full recovery.

Earlier on Tuesday, a suicide truck bomb ripped through the five-star hotel Pearl Continental killing 11 people and wounding 52 in Peshawar, capital of a northwest Pakistani province plagued by Taliban violence, reports said.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but it has the markings of a Taliban attack on the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September 2008 that killed 60 people.

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