Benazir Bhutto said last night that she had sent President Musharraf the names of three people whom she suspected of planning the attempt to kill her, as she vowed to keep campaigning for elections due in January.

Ms Bhutto, who escaped unhurt from the twin blasts that killed 140 people, blamed officials inside President Musharraf’s Government as well as militants for trying to kill her and derail her struggle to bring back democracy after eight years of military rule.

“The cowardly people who planned the attacks on me are not Muslims,” she said in a sombre, hour-long speech at her family residence in Karachi. “No Muslim can attack a woman, no Muslim can attack innocent people.”

She called for an inquiry into why the streetlights along her procession were switched off “even though it was sunset”, preventing her guards from spotting the suicide bombers, and said that she had new information about another imminent attack.

The explosions just after midnight on Thursday, which shattered the carnival spirit of the million-strong crowd that greeted her return from exile, have confounded Pakistan. The country is no stranger to violence, but the skilfully targeted assault on the head of the Pakistan People’s Party, arguably now the most powerful political force, has left many asking whether terrorism can ever be defeated by civilian or military leaders.

“The attack was on what I represent. The attack was on democracy and the very unity and integrity of Pakistan,” Ms Bhutto said at her fortified compound in the exclusive Clifton district of Karachi. Those killed “had made the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of democracy and the fundamental rights of the people of Pakistan”, she said.

Yesterday President Musharraf called Ms Bhutto and offered her army commandos for protection. He also said that answers to an immediate inquiry about the attempt on her life should be sent to him within 48 hours. Shaukat Aziz, the Prime Minister, said that the attacks would not derail the elections Ms Bhutto, twice Prime Minister, accused three unnamed government officials of conspiring to kill her. “I have already informed President Musharraf in a letter about them and their plot,” she said, but refused to reveal their identities. “I am not blaming the Government for the assassination attempts on me at this stage,” she said.

She demanded that the Interior Minister explain why the streetlights had been turned off, although Mustafa Kamal, the Mayor of Karachi, denied that this was the case.

“As the sunset came we saw that the lights had been closed off,” Ms Bhutto said. “We were moving in darkness, we could not see around us. I know that if the streetlights had been on our guards would have spotted the suicide bombers.”

She said that shots were also fired at the converted lorry at the time of the two blasts. “We don’t know whether it was a deliberate attempt to stop the truck by firing at the driver,” she said.

Composed but passionate in an hour-long speech yesterday, Ms Bhutto listed the world leaders who had telephoned her or sent messages to express their condemnation. Gordon Brown pledged his support in dealing with the “horrific use of violence against entirely innocent people” and sent his condolences to the families of the victims. He said that a hotline had been set up for those in Britain. Speaking from the EU summit in Lisbon, Mr Brown said: “The message must go out that we will not tolerate this terrorist violence.”

Britain has warmly backed Ms Bhutto’s return, believing that she and President Musharraf share secular, liberal values and are the best bet for holding the extremists at bay. It hopes that parliamentary elections in January will prove a crucial step towards democracy after President Musharraf’s eight-year military rule.

The return of Ms Bhutto to Pakistan was smoothed by her controversial power-sharing deal with President Musharraf last month in which he agreed to drop the corruption charges that drove her into exile.

Ms Bhutto said that she expected more attacks on her by pro-Taleban militants. She had been warned about “one suicide squad from the Taleban elements, one suicide squad from al-Qaeda, one suicide squad from Pakistani Taleban, and a fourth, a group, I believe, from Karachi”.

Pakistan in turmoil

— The early summer was marked by protests over the President Musharraf’s suspension of Iftikar M. Chaudhry as Chief Justice. Lawyers claimed that removal of the Chief Justice was politically motivated and rioted in the streets in what was one the most sustained challenges to the President’s power. They eventually forced the President to reinstate Mr Chaudhry

— At the end of July a tense stand-off between the military and hardline clerics at the fundamentalist Red Mosque, below, in Islamabad ended in bloodshed when troops stormed the compound. This led to a dramatic escalation in the conflict between government forces and Taleban sympathisers in the northwest of the country

— Suicide bombings and gun battles are now a regular occurrence in the border regions, and 200 troops are being held hostage by a military commander allied to al-Qaeda Kashmir remains another source of contention. Earlier this week the Indian Government accused Pakistan of supporting rebels who bombed a cinema in northern India on Sunday, killing six people and wounding at least 32

— One of the few bright spots is Pakistan’s economy, which has grown strongly since the Government threw its support behind the White House’s War on Terror. However, with so much of the rest of the country in crisis, even those gains are in jeopardy

Source: Times Archive, agencies

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