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.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2009)