U.S. Military Seeks to Widen Pakistan Raid

 

American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months urged a widening of the war that could include American attacks on indigenous Pakistani militants in the tribal areas inside Pakistan, according to United States officials.

 requests have been rebuffed for now, the officials said, after deliberations in Washington among senior Bush administration officials who fear that attacking Pakistani radicals may anger Pakistan’s new government, which is negotiating with the militants, and destabilize an already fragile security situation.

American commanders would prefer that Pakistani forces attack the militants, but Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas have slowed recently to avoid upsetting the negotiations.

Pakistan’s government has given the Central Intelligence Agency limited authority to kill Arab and other foreign operatives in the tribal areas, using remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But administration officials say the Pakistani government has put far greater restrictions on American operations against indigenous Pakistani militant groups, including one thought to have been behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

(Continue reading: New York Times)

 

Pakistan Elects First Female Speaker of Parliament

New crop of Pak. lawmakers are richer, flashier and more secular

Islamabad: Gold-trimmed SUVs idle outside the parliament. Among new female lawmakers, Muslim veils are out and Gucci bags are in.

Civilian rule has returned to Pakistan, and its politicians have come back with bling.

Last month’s elections ushered into parliament a new crop of business leaders and wealthy elites opposed to U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf’s one-man rule.

The new body is headed by followers of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, secularists who have vowed to fight Islamic extremism.

Many are also veterans of a series of civilian governments that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s.

Eight years after Musharraf took over in a military coup, they’re back in power, accessories and all.

“It’s their cars, their fashion. They have all the latest models,” said Sana Asad, a Pakistani journalist covering parliament. “They’re richer and more secular.”

“Perhaps it’s because they’re connected to the previous administrations, the wealthy elites,” she said, sunning herself outside parliament’s housing complex Wednesday.

Parliament’s parking lot was crowded with new sports utility vehicles festooned with flashy tire rims and hood ornaments. Women in bright colors clogged past in heels and huge sunglasses. Bodyguards fanned out.

The Feb. 18 elections saw a hardline coalition of religious groups lose control of the country’s northwest along the Afghan border. Also, many conservative-minded allies of Musharraf lost their seats.

In the last parliament, about a dozen female lawmakers from the religious alliance wore body-shrouding black veils that concealed everything except their eyes.

But as parliament elected its first female speaker Wednesday, just a single lawmaker, one of 74 women in the 342-seat house, covered her face with a light beige wrap. Others wore traditional flowing gowns, some with bare heads and others with their hair only partially covered by loose scarves.

The National Assembly elected its first woman speaker on Wednesday, a member of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which won elections last month.

Fehmida Mirza, 51, a medical doctor from a political family from Sindh province, easily defeated a candidate from the main party that backs President Pervez Musharraf by 249 votes to 70, said outgoing speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain.

“It’s a tremendous thing and something Pakistan can be proud of,” said Nasim Zehra, a Pakistani analyst and fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center.

“There’s a different texture in politics now. The orientation of this parliament is different, with a different kind of people with different backgrounds,” she said.

On Wednesday, Khaled Mahmood Javed sat behind the tinted windows of a shiny sedan flying the flag of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.

His brother, Rai Ghulam Murtaza, is an incoming lawmaker who first served under Bhutto in the 1980s.

“A lot of them are businessmen, and none are poor. They’re big men, important men, and they’re less religious, too,” Javed said of the new breed of legislators.

Millions still live in poverty in the Islamic nation despite annual economic growth of about 7 percent for the past five years. Much of it was due to cash being sent home by Pakistani expatriates. Murtaza was one of them, his brother said.

“My brother lived abroad for the past 15 years. He’s a dual citizen of Canada,” Javed said proudly.

Many of Pakistan’s top politicians are feudal landlords. Others amassed fortunes in Pakistan’s booming banking and telecom sectors while they sat out politics under Musharraf.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a Bhutto loyalist and contender for prime minister, acknowledged that the lawmakers’ ostentatious wealth could raise doubts about their commitment to solving the problems of ordinary Pakistanis.

“Austerity should be exercised, given the economic compulsions that we have,” Qureshi told Dawn News television Tuesday. He said the country faced “huge challenges,” with high inflation and power shortages.

Economic hardships persist for most Pakistanis. The country has yet to fully overcome a severe shortage of wheat flour, a staple here, and fuel prices have spiked sharply in recent weeks.

Outside parliament Wednesday, policemen sat in clusters under small pine trees, watching new lawmakers parade past multicolored banners lining the drive up to the legislature’s marble pillars.

“Rich candidates always do better. They have more connections,” said one of the officers, lazily picking at wild dandelions. A policemen earns just over $100 USD a month.

“Islam doesn’t allow women to unveil themselves, but the atmosphere in Pakistan is changing day by day. You can see it in the fashion here,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to media.

“It’s a bit of a charade, but it’s also a big sign of democracy and hope,” he said.

//the-hindu/ + /reuters//

Bhutto heir takes center stage

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, 19, has resumed his college career after an extraordinarily intense trip home to Pakistan, where he endured the assassination of his mother and the new burden of following in her footsteps as chairman of the country’s largest opposition political party.

But he would not get to return to his dormitory preserve at Christ Church, one of the poshest colleges at Oxford University, before facing off with the notoriously irrepressible London press corps.

Despite receiving “somewhat of a rough ride from the U.K. press pack,” as The London Times put it, he was clearly well prepared to be in the saddle, scoring strong sound bites and bits of praise for his overall performance (”accomplished,” “confident“).

When they pushed on his lack of experience, he conceded the obvious and focused on the future like a P.R. pro. “Although I admit that my experience to date is limited, I intend to learn,” he said.

Asked about the investigation into the killing of his mother, Benazir Bhutto, he singled out Pakistan’s longtime military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, as untrustworthy and called for a U.N.-led inquiry.

Given a chance to speak on behalf of the opposition, he found a worthy line, too: “I fear for my country,’’ he said, according to Bloomberg News. “I fear if free and fair elections are not held, it may disintegrate.’’

By the way, he wasn’t handed the title of chairman of the Pakistan People Party “like some piece of family furniture,” he said, and neither did he covet it.

“I do not claim to have any aspiration,” Mr. Bhutto said, according to BBC News. “I was called and I stepped up to do what I was asked to do.”

And at one point, he mocked his questioners for being fooled by a prankster impersonating him on Facebook, the social networking site. And he did so “gently,” The Times of London said.

That affair — and not various threats on his life — represented his main concern now that he’s back in college, he told the paper: “I fear more for my privacy.”

via//New York Times

In defence of Pakistan’s military dictator

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf gets a bad press; Benazir Bhutto a too kind one. Which of them is the real rogue?

When Musharraf, as Pakistan’s top army commander, tried to engineer war with India over Kashmir in 1999, he demonstrated his roguish side. Yet even many of his opponents in Pakistan will concede that since he deposed Nawaz Sharif and assumed power he has been largely a benevolent dictator.

Compared with the last days of the Shah – and many in the American foreign policy establishment are falsely comparing what happened then with what is happening today in Pakistan – the country remained until Bhutto’s assassination rather stable, except in its lawless frontier provinces that border Afghanistan, a problem area even in British colonial days.

Until now, Musharraf has rarely cracked the whip. His riot police act with relative moderation. His jails are not full. Executions are rare and never for political offences. Pakistan today is not Iran of yesterday, neither in the type of leadership nor in its degree of religious fervour: the Islamist parties have never gained more than 11 per cent of the vote in a free election.

Bhutto and her husband seem manifestly corrupt. The one chance of nailing her lay in Switzerland where she had stashed cash in quantities she could never have earned honestly. At the time of her death she was appealing a Swiss conviction for money laundering. Many believe she was implicated in her brother’s death. Certainly she quarrelled with both her brothers and her mother, all of whom competed to have the lead billing in the family’s political drama. She also was estranged from her husband.

Yet now, according to her will, her husband was her chosen successor. For Bhutto, keeping the family – to wit her 19-year-old son – in the line of power was more important than developing a democratic, openly competitive, party.

In comparison, Musharraf has done no great favours for his family, nor earned excessive wealth. He is a down-to-earth army man, who when younger loved to test his macho side.

It was under Musharraf that Pakistan extended the olive branch to India over Kashmir. Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, praised Bhutto as someone who had wanted to break the “sterile patterns of the past” that had brought them to war three times over disputed Kashmir.

But this was a gratuitous backhanded slap at Musharraf. Singh knows as well as anyone that the Kashmir dispute is grounded for lack of Indian resolve to go the last mile. He also knows that the militancy that plagues the region, spreading its infection into Afghanistan and to the frontier provinces of northwestern Pakistan originates in large part among the fighters who first engaged in violence in Kashmir in an attempt to oust the Indian presence.

There is no doubt that the Pakistani military was in large measure responsible for developing this infection when it built up the strength of the mujahidin in Kashmir. It provided training. It helped with logistics and provided military materials over a long period of time.

But, apart from clandestine illegal work by some local Pakistani military and intelligence officials, this support network has been closed down by Musharraf. This doesn’t stop the militants from drawing their military requirements elsewhere or stop them organizing a big bombing from time to time in India. Nor does it stop them working with the Taliban and the other militants of northwest Pakistan. In their eyes, India has designs on Afghanistan and is the enemy of all Islamic militant movements.

A peace agreement on the lines proposed by Musharraf – which most Western diplomats will tell you is as handsome an offer as they ever imagined – would shut down Kashmir-grown militancy once and for all. The militants are no longer as popular as they were inside Kashmir and the proposed peace deal would finally pull the carpet from beneath them. Moreover, it would be a singular contribution to the lessening of all Pakistan-based terrorism.

Why doesn’t Singh do it? Because of pressures from his own military. Because of the aspiring great power role of the foreign policy establishment that can’t bear to treat Pakistan as an equal. Because of the ultra chauvinism of Singh’s coalition partners, the Communists. Because the priority with the Communists on policy is to persuade them to agree to the pending nuclear deal with the U.S.

But now that Musharraf is losing political strength all bets are off. Pakistan itself may be consumed by this infection of militancy.

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Jonathan Power is the author of Conundrums of Humanity: The Quest for Global Justice.via//Star, The

Benazir Bhutto: An Age of Hope Is Over

Nineteen years ago at the end of December, Benazir Bhutto, fresh from her first, exhilarating election victory and newly sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, met Rajiv Gandhi, the youthful prime minister of India, for talks in Islamabad. She was 35, he was 44. There was obvious good will, almost intimacy, between them. The air was full of promise and hope that these two modernizing scions of dominant political families would turn decades of war and hostility between their nations into a new era of peace.

Three and a half years later, Gandhi was assassinated. There had been no breakthrough with Pakistan to bolster his legacy. Now Bhutto is dead, at another moment of renewed anticipation. An age of hope is over.

There is a terrible symmetry in the lives and deaths of these two political leaders. Both were the children of powerful people: Indira Gandhi as India’s prime minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto her counterpart in Pakistan. Together, in 1972, they had negotiated an agreement over Kashmir, but their heirs were never able to build on it. Their respective children, Rajiv and Benazir, had seen those parents suffer politically motivated deaths: Indira murdered in 1984 by bodyguards revenging her attacks on Sikhs, and Zulfikar hanged under the regime of General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in what many Pakistanis consider a thinly disguised judicial execution.

Young Gandhi and Bhutto, both killed in suicide attacks, ultimately became the victims of inherited policies. Rajiv Gandhi had tried to put an end to Indian meddling in Sri Lanka and its support for a vicious Tamil Tiger rebellion. He was killed by a Sri Lankan Tamil suicide bomber, a woman who moved toward him to touch his feet in an age-old gesture, then triggered an explosion that blew them both apart. While it is too early to know who killed Benazir, Pakistan’s policies on Afghanistan are the backdrop to this tense and dangerous moment. Her father and his successors had supported Afghan rebels in order to become a player in Afghanistan and counter Indian influence in Kabul lately aligning riskily with American policies. Rajiv’s mother, whose intelligence agencies roamed the region causing havoc, had set out to weaken Sri Lanka, South Asia’s most developed nation.

Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi were both campaigning to return to power when they died. Both had been elected, then vilified. She lost support among middle-class Pakistanis for her feudal ways and unwillingness to take on social issues–child labor or the mistreatment of women–or chip away at the power of the military, and was driven from office twice on charges of corruption, much of it attributed to her husband. In India, Rajiv was the perennial butt of attacks from unreconstructed leftists and traditionalists who scoffed at his Westernized style, Italian wife and fresh ideas that rattled the khadi crowd. On the night he died, a policeman told me they had identified his remains by his expensive imported running shoes. Suspicions linger that Gandhi or those close to him may have been involved in illegal payments for arms contracts.

Tragically, political violence has been the bane of modern South Asia, from Afghanistan and Pakistan east to Bangladesh. Militants and fanatics of all stripes and dogmas and grievances have assassinated leaders since much of the region gained independence from Britain in the mid 1940s. It has been a formidable hindrance to development of political institutions.

In New Delhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi was killed in 1948 by an outraged Hindu. Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in 1951–in the same Rawalpindi park where Benazir Bhutto was attacked–and General Zia ul-Haq perished in a still mysterious plane crash in 1988. In Sri Lanka in 1959, Prime Minister S.W.R.D Bandaranaike fell victim to a fanatic Buddhist monk, the first of two generations of more than a half-dozen leading politicians to die in shootings and bombings. (Tamil Tiger rebels would later try but fail to kill Bandaranaike’s daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, when she was president.) Sheikh Mujibir Rahman, founder and first Prime Minister of independent Bangladesh, was murdered in 1975; in 1981 Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman, was shot in an army coup. Nepal’s entire royal family was wiped out in one evening in Kathmandu in 2001, apparently by a disaffected crown prince.

Hindus and Muslims killed one another by the hundreds of thousands after the partition of British India in 1947 into Pakistan and modern India. And compared with Pakistan since then, India has experienced much more large-scale sectarian and political violence, with thousands of Sikhs butchered in the streets of Delhi and elsewhere in North India after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, and up to 2,000 Muslims slaughtered by Hindu nationalists in Gujarat–Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace–in 2002. In both cases, political parties have been deeply implicated yet no political leader has been punished–in a democracy.

As the world mourns the loss of Benazir Bhutto, it would be myopic to focus only on Islamic-inspired violence and on Pakistan. This is a region with a turbulent post-independence political history. Our (Islamophobic?) preoccupation with Muslim terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan often blocks out a bigger picture. From end to end, South Asia is a region drenched in blood.

via//The Nation

Who Killed Bhutto?

Pakistan’s Fractured Polity: Who Killed Bhutto?

By MURTAZA SHIBLI

The death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is being mourned by millions of Pakistanis. She had a profound public base despite staying out of her country for nearly a decade and dogged by corruption and nepotism charges.

Her death, however, should not come as a surprise at all. For the past three decades, Pakistan has been turned into a “Jihad factory’ under the guidance of the US and other Western powers. After 9/11 when Pakistan launched a war on its own people in the name of “War on terror’, it was not uncanny to predict that the Jihadis who were nourished previously will turn against their old allies — the politicians and the military and the innocent people of Pakistan will get caught and entangled as a collateral.

Martyr of Democracy?

Is Benazir Bhutto a martyr for democracy in Pakistan? Many of the Pakistani political parties are calling it a set-back for democracy which could be seriously contested, but her death is certainly a blow to the electoral exercise. Strangely, exiled leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement MQM, Altaf Hussain called her “martyr of democracy’. Altaf Hussain’s MQM is blamed for hundreds of terrorist actions that led to the deaths of thousands of people in Karachi. The world’s “greatest democrat’ George Bush has claimed that Benazir laid down her life for the ideals of democracy.

Benazir Bhutto was indeed a very popular woman politician of her country, but she was by no means a democrat. During her tenure as twice Prime Minister of her country, she stifled the growth of democracy and undermined the democratic institutions. She not only concentrated in herself the absolute power of the country, but also assumed the title of chairperson for life of her political party — Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Her husband Asif Ali Zardari is generally seen as the villain who tarnished Benazir’s image through corruption and violence. Zardari, a jagirdar or landlord used his traditional violent methods to subdue his opponents and used the government power of his wife to extract benefits through his various corrupt, and often violent deals. He was alleged to be involved in the killing of Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir’s brother. Asif Zardari had even maintained private jails where he tortured his opponents. This all happened while Benazir Bhutto’s “democratically elected’ government was in power.

Benazir’s record for corruption surpassed all the pervious governments as she amassed huge assets mostly in Dubai, the UK and other Western capitals plundering the assets of her country. Her government was involved in the massive human rights violations particularly in Karachi where the MQM militants had virtually brought the financial capital of Pakistan to a grinding halt. The reaction of the Benazir government was ruthless operations that killed thousands of innocent and unarmed civilians.

Although Benazir was portrayed as the “modern and moderate’ face of Pakistan who could help fighting Jihadists, this fact is conveniently buried that it was her government that helped formation of Taliban whose legacy continues to ruin Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond.

After her return from self-exile, Benazir went beyond all decency and decorum to appease the US and other Western powers. Her assertions that she was not opposed to the American operations in the Pakistan’s tribal areas to fight “terrorism’ and would allow disgraced scientist AQ Khan to be interrogated by the US showed her desperation for power. Power was all that mattered and she showed no regard to the public feelings or her country’s integrity. She even talked tough about Jihadis and was willing to follow the course of General Musharraf’s military response to the crisis rather than any political negotiation to rid the country of growing extremism.

Who killed Benazir?

There is no doubt that Benazir Bhutto had many enemies. After her rhetoric against Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalists, her list of enemies grew phenomenally.

Despite the “deal’ between Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, she was seen as main challenge to the current government. This is important to note that General Musharraf allowed Bhutto into Pakistan only after tremendous US pressure. When she arrived in Pakistan in October last, the millions of people who came to receive her gave sleepless nights to the government authorities. This ultimately paved way for the return of Nawaz Sharief another former Prime Minister who was earlier deported as soon as he landed in Pakistan.

Although the Jihadists and Al-Qaeda had allegedly vowed to kill her, the current Pakistani regime headed by General Musharraf can not be absolved and will be the greatest benefactor of her death. Another rival who may have been willing to see her dead are Chaudhry Brothers — Chaudhry Pervez Illahi and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of Pakistan Muslim League Q, the political partner of General Musharraf. The Chaudhry Brothers were the bitterest opponents of Benazir’s homecoming and tried unsuccessfully to stop President Musharraf from doing a deal with Bhutto.

When the terrorists attacked Benazir’s homecoming rally on October 18, 2007, she blamed former Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Ilahi. Chaudhry Brothers have had well documented connections with the Jihadist extremists and are well known to use violence for their political goals.

Even if President Musharraf’s government may not be directly involved in her killing, it can not be absolved of inaction in protecting her. Despite being on the “hit list’ of terrorists and extremists, Benazir was not provided ample security cover. The deterioration of Pakistan’s intelligence and security apparatus to predict or stop suicide bombings can be gauged by the number of rising fatal bombings in and around the highest protected area of the Army Headquarters GHQ in Rawalpindi. Benazir Bhutto was also killed in Rawalpindi not far from the country’s military headquarters.

The Future

The future of Pakistan is fraught with instability and the death of Benazir has further undermined the internal security of Pakistan. After her death, her party could win the majority of seats if the elections go ahead, but there is no single leader that could hold the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) together. Unfortunately, Benazir’s legacy for her party is highly undemocratic and there is a chance that the PPP could split with many contenders and claimants for the throne. This could create further divisions among the Pakistan’s fractured polity.

There is no doubt that the death meted out to Benazir Bhutto is tragic and testing for Pakistan. But there are some positive things that seem to be coming out of this national tragedy. In his reaction and speech to the nation, President Pervez Musharraf declared a three day “official mourning’ when the national flag will fly at half mast. This is for the first time that the death of an opposition leader has been recognised officially. Similarly, Islamist Jama’at-e-Islami while condemning the terror act has called for a general strike. Other political parties from a wide spectrum of persuasions have condemned the killing and offered condolences.

The suicide attack on Benazir’s convoy on 18th October 2007 that killed nearly 150 Pakistani civilians precipitated the anger of Pakistanis against the terrorism and extremism. There was a massive public recognition and reaction against the extremist ideology. Benazir’s death might act as a catalyst to unite the Pakistani nation and strengthen their resolve to fight the menace that has engulfed the country thanks to its willingness to act as proxy to the alien interests in the region.

If Pervaiz Musharraf’s government can offer initiatives to value the public opinion of Pakistanis in this time of multiple crisis and bring about a real national reconciliation, Pakistan could emerge from the challenges that are not only threatening the core values of its society, but also the very existence of the country and its people.

Murtaza Shibli is editor of Kashmir Affairs. He lives in London.

via//Kashmir Affairs

Pakistan’s Bhutto Killed

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack.

Ms Bhutto had just addressed an election rally in Rawalpindi when gunfire and an explosion occurred.

At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured.

President Pervez Musharraf and his government called on people to remain calm so that the “nefarious designs of terrorists can be defeated.”

Ms Bhutto had twice been the country’s prime minister and had been campaigning ahead of elections due in January.

Nawaz Sharif, also a former prime minister and a political rival, told the BBC her death was a tragedy for “the entire nation”.

“I can’t tell you what the feelings of the people of Pakistan are today,” he told BBC News 24 after returning from the hospital where she was brought.

It was the second suicide attack against Benazir Bhutto in recent months and comes amid a wave of bombings targeting security and government officials.

Ms Bhutto’s death has plunged her party into confusion and raised questions about whether January elections will go ahead as planned, the BBC’s Barbara Plett in Islamabad says.

The PPP has the largest support of any party in the country.

Analysts note that Rawalpindi, the nerve centre of Pakistan’s military, is seen as one of the country’s most secure cities, making the attack even more embarrassing for the government of Gen Musharraf.

Scene of grief

The explosion occurred close to an entrance gate of the park in Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had been speaking.

People were distraught at the scene of the blast

Wasif Ali Khan, a member of the PPP who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital, said she died at 18:16 Pakistan time.

Supporters at the hospital began chanting “Dog, Musharraf, dog”, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

Some supporters wept while others exploded in anger, throwing stones at cars and breaking windows.

An interior ministry spokesman, Javed Cheema, was quoted as saying by AFP that she may have been killed by pellets packed into the suicide bomber’s vest.

However, AP quoted a PPP security adviser as saying she was shot in the neck and chest as she got into her vehicle, before the gunman blew himself up.

Mr Sharif said there had been a “serious lapse in security” by the government.

Earlier on Thursday, at least four people were killed ahead of an election rally he himself had been preparing to attend close to Rawalpindi.

Return from exile

The killing was condemned by the US, the UK, Russia and France.

BENAZIR BHUTTO Father led Pakistan before being executed in 1979 Spent five years in prison Served as PM from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996 Sacked twice by president on corruption charges Formed alliance with rival ex-PM Nawaz Sharif in 2006 Ended self-imposed exile by returning to Pakistan in October Educated at Harvard and Oxford Obituary: Benazir Bhutto Life in pictures In pictures: Fatal rally

“The attack shows that there are still those in Pakistan trying to undermine reconciliation and democratic development in Pakistan,” a US state department official said.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was “deeply shocked” by Ms Bhutto’s death and called for “restraint but also unity”.

“Extremist groups… cannot and must not succeed,” he added.

Russia called on Pakistan’s leaders to ensure stability while France spoke of an “odious” act and said it was deeply concerned.

Ms Bhutto returned from self-imposed exile in October after years out of Pakistan where she had faced corruption charges.

Her return was the result of a power-sharing agreement with President Musharraf in which he granted an amnesty that covered the court cases she was facing.

Since her return relations with Mr Musharraf had broken down.

On the day of her return she led a motor cavalcade through the city of Karachi. It was hit by a double suicide attack that left some 130 dead.

via//BBC News