Bhutto defiant after homecoming blasts kill 133
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Benazir Bhutto
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Benazir Bhu-tto stood defiant Friday after a suicide bomb targeting
the former Pakistani prime minister’s homecoming parade killed 133
people and tipped the country toward crisis.
Bhutto was unhurt, narrowly escaping with her life after climbing
down into the interior of her vehicle just moments before the bomb and a
grenade seconds earlier ripped through the police escort.
The streets of Karachi, packed with hundreds of thousands of her
supporters, became a scene of bloody carnage.
It was the worst suicide attack in Pakistan’s history, casting an
immediate shadow over hopes that her return with the approval of
military ruler Pervez Musharraf might bring an end to months of
political turmoil.
Blood and body parts were scattered widely across the scene and
doctors at hospitals in Pakistan’s biggest city struggled to keep pace
after the attack, which occurred late on Thursday.
Bhutto’s party vowed she would stay in Pakistan to fight general
elections in January, seen as a key step to returning the nuclear-armed
nation of some 160 million people to civilian rule.
“She will stay in Pakistan, she will not leave, she is determined,”
Safdar Abbasi, a senator for Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party, told AFP
at Bhutto’s residence, Bilawal House, in Karachi.
Angry Bhutto supporters burned tyres and hurled stones at police in
several parts of the city on Friday, witnesses said.
“It was an act of terrorism targeting Benazir Bhutto and aimed at
sabotaging the democratic process,” Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told
AFP.
Meanwhile, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf telephoned former
premier Benazir Bhutto to offer his condolences after a “terrorist”
blast targeting her homecoming parade, his spokesman said.
Musharraf called her to “convey his deepest sorrow over the terrorist
attack” and vowed to arrest the culprits, presidential spokesman retired
Major General Rashid Qureshi told AFP.
“We all condemn this terrorism and no one should take advantage of
the situation and start a blame game,” he quoted Musharraf as saying
during the call.
Benazir Bhutto on Friday accused supporters of Pakistan’s late
military ruler Mohammed Zia ul-Haq for the bomb explosion that killed
more than 130 people after her arrival at Karachi, in an interview to
Paris-Match magazine.
“I know exactly who wants to kill me. It is dignitaries of the former
regime of General Zia who are today behind the extremism and the
fanaticism,” she said in an interview published on Paris-Match’s
Internet site. - AFP
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