Bhutto calls for international help on bomb probe
Benazir Bhutto on Sunday urged Pakistan to enlist international experts to help find those behind last week's suicide attack which turned the former premier's homecoming parade into bloody carnage.
By Agencies |
KARACHI: Benazir Bhutto on Sunday urged Pakistan to enlist international experts to help find those behind last week's suicide attack which turned the former premier's homecoming parade into bloody carnage.
Bhutto made the plea after visiting hospitals to meet some of those injured in Thursday's blasts, which killed 139 people and ruined her planned triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years in self-imposed exile.
"We want the government of Pakistan to seek the assistance of the international community," the two-time premier told a group of foreign reporters at her Karachi home.
"They have anti-terrorism experts who have the technical expertise to investigate attacks of this nature," she said, adding that she had discussed the issue with countries including the United States and Britain.
Bhutto also called for the current Pakistani investigators to be replaced, saying that she suspects that the nation's security agencies have been infiltrated by "militants and Al-Qaeda".
Bhutto, the first female leader of an Islamic nation, reiterated her pledge to stay in Pakistan to campaign ahead of general elections in January, seen as a key step to restoring civilian rule in the country of 160 million.
"We will have to modify our campaign to some extent because of the suicide bombings but we are not going to stop our campaign to reach the public," she said.
"The militants are trying to disrupt the political process because they do not want... the moderate majority of the people of Pakistan to stand up."
The attack on her homecoming parade had cast doubt over her previous plans to tour the country to whip up support ahead of the crucial polls.
A shrapnel-packed suicide bomb ripped through a crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters who had gathered on the streets to cheer Bhutto's return to Pakistan only hours earlier.
She set foot on Pakistani soil for the first time since 1999 after President Pervez Musharraf dropped corruption charges against her in the hope her popularity could shore up his grip on power.
She had mostly worked out a power-sharing deal with him, but his re-election as president earlier this month is now being challenged in the courts, as is the corruption amnesty that Musharraf signed.
Bhutto Sunday received a telephone call from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who "expressed sympathy over the loss of innocent lives," the former premier's party said in a statement.
The US has backed the proposed Musharraf-Bhutto deal to step up the fight against rising Islamic militancy in Pakistan.
Earlier Sunday, Bhutto visited those wounded in the bombings at two hospitals, making her first public outing in Karachi since the attacks.
Flanked by heavy security carrying automatic weapons, she waved to dozens of supporters upon leaving Jinnah Hospital after she handed out envelopes containing 5,000 rupees (84 dollars) to the injured.
"My wounds were healed when I met Benazir Bhutto -- it was the biggest thing in my life. I feel no pain now," Imran Ally, hit in the leg and chest by metal debris, told AFP.
Bhutto insisted that her homecoming was not a mistake despite the carnage, adding that the size of the crowds "shows that the people of Pakistan are not intimidated by bombs and threats."
She has said she received a warning prior to her return from Dubai about members of the Al-Qaeda network, Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and a Karachi-based militant group who might have been planning to attack her.
Police questioned three people Sunday over the attack, which sparked a third straight day of low-level protests by her supporters in several cities in southern Pakistan, officials said.
The three suspects were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade, a police official said, shortly before the suicide blast.
Police have also questioned seven militants in jails in Karachi for possible information on the blasts, added the official, who has investigated several other attacks in the volatile port city.
Bhutto has accused Islamist supporters of late military ruler Zia-ul-Haq of being behind the blasts. He overthrew Bhutto's father, prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in 1977 and had him hanged two years later.
Bhutto made the plea after visiting hospitals to meet some of those injured in Thursday's blasts, which killed 139 people and ruined her planned triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years in self-imposed exile.
"We want the government of Pakistan to seek the assistance of the international community," the two-time premier told a group of foreign reporters at her Karachi home.
"They have anti-terrorism experts who have the technical expertise to investigate attacks of this nature," she said, adding that she had discussed the issue with countries including the United States and Britain.
Bhutto also called for the current Pakistani investigators to be replaced, saying that she suspects that the nation's security agencies have been infiltrated by "militants and Al-Qaeda".
Bhutto, the first female leader of an Islamic nation, reiterated her pledge to stay in Pakistan to campaign ahead of general elections in January, seen as a key step to restoring civilian rule in the country of 160 million.
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"We will have to modify our campaign to some extent because of the suicide bombings but we are not going to stop our campaign to reach the public," she said.
"The militants are trying to disrupt the political process because they do not want... the moderate majority of the people of Pakistan to stand up."
The attack on her homecoming parade had cast doubt over her previous plans to tour the country to whip up support ahead of the crucial polls.
A shrapnel-packed suicide bomb ripped through a crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters who had gathered on the streets to cheer Bhutto's return to Pakistan only hours earlier.
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She set foot on Pakistani soil for the first time since 1999 after President Pervez Musharraf dropped corruption charges against her in the hope her popularity could shore up his grip on power.
She had mostly worked out a power-sharing deal with him, but his re-election as president earlier this month is now being challenged in the courts, as is the corruption amnesty that Musharraf signed.
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Bhutto Sunday received a telephone call from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who "expressed sympathy over the loss of innocent lives," the former premier's party said in a statement.
The US has backed the proposed Musharraf-Bhutto deal to step up the fight against rising Islamic militancy in Pakistan.
Earlier Sunday, Bhutto visited those wounded in the bombings at two hospitals, making her first public outing in Karachi since the attacks.
Flanked by heavy security carrying automatic weapons, she waved to dozens of supporters upon leaving Jinnah Hospital after she handed out envelopes containing 5,000 rupees (84 dollars) to the injured.
"My wounds were healed when I met Benazir Bhutto -- it was the biggest thing in my life. I feel no pain now," Imran Ally, hit in the leg and chest by metal debris, told AFP.
Bhutto insisted that her homecoming was not a mistake despite the carnage, adding that the size of the crowds "shows that the people of Pakistan are not intimidated by bombs and threats."
She has said she received a warning prior to her return from Dubai about members of the Al-Qaeda network, Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and a Karachi-based militant group who might have been planning to attack her.
Police questioned three people Sunday over the attack, which sparked a third straight day of low-level protests by her supporters in several cities in southern Pakistan, officials said.
The three suspects were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade, a police official said, shortly before the suicide blast.
Police have also questioned seven militants in jails in Karachi for possible information on the blasts, added the official, who has investigated several other attacks in the volatile port city.
Bhutto has accused Islamist supporters of late military ruler Zia-ul-Haq of being behind the blasts. He overthrew Bhutto's father, prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in 1977 and had him hanged two years later.
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