A suicide bombing killed at least 124 people and injured more than 320 around midnight Thursday in Karachi, Pakistan, near the motorcade of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, according to hospital and police sources.
Bhutto, recently returned to Pakistan, is helped from her vehicle following the bombing.
Bhutto, who returned to the country earlier in the day after eight years of self-imposed exile, was uninjured, as were those with her. She apparently had moved from the roof of her bullet- and blast-proof vehicle to the inside just moments before the blasts.
"I can see body parts strewn all over the road," said CNN's Dan Rivers, who was at the scene. "There are dead bodies everywhere. ... It is a large-scale attack, by the looks of things."
Video footage showed Bhutto her exiting the vehicle after the attack, and she reached her family home safely, her companions said.
Authorities believe the suicide bomber was on foot and threw a grenade to attract attention before setting off the second, major blast, Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi told CNN. The bomber is believed to have acted alone, he said. 
Watch witnesses describe what happened »
Police do not think a car bomb was involved, Farooqi said, although nearby cars were burned.
He would not say whom authorities think was behind the bombing, citing the ongoing investigation.
"The truck that Benazir Bhutto was riding on was surrounded by police cars -- so the suicide bomber could not get onto the truck and could not get anywhere near it. So he blew himself up and that has caused many casualties, mostly among the policemen who were riding beside the truck," Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistani information minister, told CNN.
Video footage from the scene showed the street jammed with emergency vehicles, and injured victims writhing in the middle of the road. At least one fire appeared to have been sparked by the blast.
Rivers and his crew were filming the motorcade just before the bombing.
"We remarked on how lax security was around her," Rivers told CNN's Wolf Blitzer after the bombing. "We got within touching distance of her vehicle. There was no security around, nobody stopping vehicles getting close to [the motorcade]."
The windshield of the vehicle in which Bhutto was riding was smashed by the blast, Rivers said, and a vehicle following hers was totally burned out. The scene, he said, was "absolutely horrendous," with blood literally running in streams down the street.
Because the streets were crowded with Bhutto's supporters, ambulances had difficulty reaching the scene. People resorted to driving the injured to hospitals in private cars.
People's Party Leader Qasim Zia, who was riding on Bhutto's truck, told CNN one of his bodyguards was killed and another seriously injured. The injured included at least 20 leaders of the party, he said, and most of those killed were members of security forces or police who were surrounding Bhutto's truck at the time of the bombing.
Had there not been heightened security measures in place, Bhutto could have been killed or injured, he said.
Bhutto, 54, is a polarizing figure in Pakistan because some Muslims in the traditional Muslim nation object to a female leader and because of her pro-Western policies.
The party considers the incident an assassination attempt against Bhutto, officials said.
The bomb detonated as Bhutto's motorcade was nearing the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who led Pakistan to independence and championed equal rights for all Pakistani citizens regardless of their religion. Bhutto had planned to stop and pray at the tomb, then deliver a speech to her supporters.
The bombing confirmed fears of instability linked to Bhutto's return, which came after she reached an agreement with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf allowing her to seek re-election as prime minister. Many were bitterly opposed to that deal.
Musharraf also dropped outstanding corruption charges against Bhutto and a number of other politicians in a "reconciliation ordinance" his office said he signed earlier this month.
The United States was swift to condemn what it called "terrorist attacks in Karachi during peaceful political demonstrations."
"There is no political cause that can justify the murder of innocent people," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a written statement. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process."
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also issued a statement condemning the bombing.
The terrorist watch group IntelCenter said the death toll from the bombing places it among the top 10 deadliest terror attacks in the past nine years.Original article posted here.
3 comments:
Sorry Weaz had not read the piece earlier been snowed under, anyways…
The former PM of PK, Zulfiqar A Bhutto, had been seen as true champion amongst the citizenship of Pakistan, someone who had been groomed by the west as an ‘inside man’ but had shown moral courage by turning on his masters.
Like Nasser before him, he firmly positioned himself on the citizen’s side; his hero status was further assured after another military leader, Zia Ul-Haq, seized power and ordered that he be hanged. It is worth noting before his death and whilst in prison ZAB commented that he had accepted his fate ever since a threat made by Kissinger a few years earlier.
Ul-Haq was himself later killed in an ‘air accident’. Now enters Benezir, like Caligula, the offspring of a hero was seen as the only natural successor but again very much like the infamous Caesar the trust of the public had been misplaced.
Few years on act two: she returns again from exile despite the crowds, which was expected in her home district, to a cynical public. The cynicism has been exacerbated not only because of plundering made during her earlier tenure but also due to the fact that the current president and military leader had made no attempt to hide the power share deal (before the elections) and that it had been ‘ordered so by the Americans’.
It now seems the unhappy group who ordered the heinous attack on Benezir, using the bandwagon ‘terror’ method, were not some religious extremists but rather ex generals, part of the original UL-Haq’s junta. The violence has only served to seal Benazir’s position - she now has the sympathy of a forgiving public on her side again.
K.
She looks like the type of hag I would pick up in the 1:15 a.m. last call rush, take her home and let her blow me while I watch porno DVDs, then kick her to the curb before she starts thinking she can stay all night.
I spotted the typo: should have been 'f' instead of 'h'.
K.
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