Pizzas galore!

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. Police were investigating whether the bomb had links to tribal regions bordering Afghanistan which have become hotbeds of support for al-Qaeda and the Taleban. Militants linked to al-Qaeda, angered by Ms Bhutto's pledge to hunt down Osama bin Laden, had threatened to assassinate her only a few days ago.

In the Paris Match interview, Ms Bhutto said: "The Talebs and the Islamists extremists cannot act alone. They can't commit their suicide attacks from a mountain cave. They need logistics, food, weapons and someone to supervise them."

She told the magazine that she knew "exactly" who wanted to kill her – former officials from the regime of the late General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who overthrew her father 30 years ago and oversaw the trial which ended in his execution.

"We should purge these elements still present in our secret services," she said. "Many of them took retirement but have been re-hired. Today they have a lot of power and I represent a danger to them: if I bring back democracy to the country, they will lose their influence."

Ms Bhutto rejected a suggestion that she might be held responsible for the attacks, given warnings from the government of General Pervez Musharraf that she would be a target for suicide bombers.

She has called for the head of the Intelligence Bureau, the civilian intelligence agency, to be dismissed.

General Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz, the Prime Minister, condemned the attack. Political analysts speculated that General Musharraf, the military leader who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and who has resisted standing down as head of the Army, might be tempted to call a state of emergency.

The attack was condemned around the world, from India to China, by Russia and the United States. The White House, which has backed Ms Bhutto’s power-sharing deal with General Musharraf, was outraged. "Extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process," said Gordon Johndroe, President Bush’s foreign affairs spokesman.

Speaking at the European Union summit in Lisbon, Gordon Brown sent his condolences for the tragedy. "The message must go out that we will not tolerate this terrorist violence. We will give support to the Pakistani authorities in dealing with those terrorists who caused the bombings," he said. "We will support at all times the attempts by the Pakistani people to re-establish democracy in their country."

The blasts came after a day of huge emotion. Standing wet-eyed on the steps of the aircraft that had brought her back to Pakistan after eight years of exile, dressed in the vivid green of the national flag, Ms Bhutto had pressed her fingers to her eyes and then raised her hands to the sky, as the crowd roared: "You will be the next leader of our country."

In the first three hours of her journey from the airport, the bus crawled just three hundred yards as people climbed electricity poles and shop awnings. Buses had brought many supporters from her native Sindh province, but also from the Punjab, the North West Frontier province and the tribal areas beyond government control.

In her Paris Match interview, she said: "Just before the attacks happened, I was very happy. The procession was one enormous party, the atmosphere was joyful, people were dancing in the street, it was magnificent. For me, that was the real Pakistan.

"Those who exploded the bombs wanted to kill off the enthusiasm of the crowds who welcomed me yesterday afternoon. But, fortunately for Pakistan, they did not manage to decapitate the democracy movement."

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