Bhutto to be given extra security

Pakistan’s former premier Benazir Bhutto will be given extra security on her homecoming next week and she has been allowed to import a special bullet-proof car, the government said Wednesday.

Bhutto’s opposition Pakistan People’s Party has requested police protection for its leader, the first female prime minister of an Islamic nation, when she returns from self-imposed exile on October 18.

The move follows a reported threat by a pro-Taliban militant leader from Pakistan’s troubled tribal belt to kill the Western-friendly, Oxford-educated Bhutto in a suicide attack.

“We will provide her security and we expect her representative to discuss the arrangements with the interior ministry authorities,” Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told AFP.

Sherpao said the government had already given Bhutto permission to bring a bullet-proof car into the country for her use.

President Pervez Musharraf agreed last week to give Bhutto, 54, an amnesty on the corruption charges that drove her into exile, in a prelude to a likely power-sharing deal between the two.

Islamabad, Thursday, AFP