KARACHI, Pakistan (CNN) -- Two explosions killed at least 78 people and injured at least 80 Thursday night near a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned to the country earlier in the day after eight years of self-imposed exile, police sources told CNN.

Two explosions went off near a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Bhutto and those with her were uninjured, and her companions said she reached her family home safely. Video footage shows her exiting the vehicle after the blasts.

... [CNN's Dan] Rivers said there was remarkably little security near the motorcade considering the sizable security risk Bhutto presents. Bhutto's return angered some sectors in Pakistan because she was a female head of state who is perceived as being aligned with the United States.

"We remarked on how lax security was around her," Rivers told Blitzer after the explosions. "We got within touching distance of her vehicle. There was no security around, nobody stopping vehicles getting close to [the motorcade]."...

[Disappointed, Mushie? - ES]

Mushie says he doesn't like it.

Osama's handling officer was incharge of Benazir's security
B Raman

October 19, 2007

According to latest reports, at least 132 persons -- 20 of them police officers deputed to protect former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto [Images] -- were killed in a suspected suicide attack on the convoy by which she was being taken from the Karachi airport to the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah on the night of October 18. The suicide attack or attacks were clearly aimed to kill her on arrival in Karachi to a triumphant welcome by her supporters, but she managed to escape.

Reliable sources say one or two suicide bombers were involved. The bullet-proof vehicle by which she was being taken by her supporters was protected by two cordons of security guards. The inner cordon consisted of security guards engaged by her Pakistan People's Party parliamentarians to protect her. Many of them were former policemen and ex-servicemen enjoying her and her party's confidence. The outer cordon consisted of officers of the Sindh police and plainclothes security officers of Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau, which is now headed by Brig Ejaz Shah, a former officer of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, who is a close personal friend of Gen Pervez Musharraf [Images] and Gen (retd) Mohammad Aziz, a Kashmiri officer belonging to the Sudan tribe who orchestrated the overthrow of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister in October 1999.

Shah is also a close personal friend of many Punjabi leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid e Azam), which is opposed to Benazir's return.

According to these sources, the suicide bomber or bombers managed to penetrate the security cordon of the police and IB officers without being frisked, but could not penetrate the inner cordon of security guards of the PPP. When stopped, they blew themselves up at a distance from her vehicle. At the time of the explosion, she had gone inside the vehicle to rest for a while. This seems to have contributed to her miraculous escape. Had she been standing on top she might have been injured, if not killed.

There are many elements in Pakistan, and in Karachi itself, which are opposed to her and are determined to prevent her return to power. These include the various jihadi terrorist groups, Al Qaeda [Images] and its allies, those involved in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl and the supporters of Dawood Ibrahim [Images], the Indian mafia leader who has been given shelter in Karachi by the Pakistani intelligence agencies. The anger against her is due to various reasons -- the fact that she is a woman, her close proximity to the US and her open statements supporting the US on various issues. They see her as the US cat's paw. It is difficult to say at present who might have been responsible for the attack on her.

Brig Ejaz Shah has been strongly criticised by Benazir and her supporters for the security failure and they have demanded his removal and arrest. When he was in the ISI, he used to be the handling officer of Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar, the amir of the Taliban. After Musharraf seized power in October 1999, he had Shah posted as the home secretary of Punjab. It was to him that Omar Sheikh, who orchestrated the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, surrendered because Omar Sheikh knew him before and was confident that Ejaz Shah would see that he was not tortured.

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Bhutto: I know exactly who wants to kill me

Declan Walsh in Karachi and Mark Tran
Friday October 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Benazir Bhutto today accused supporters of the former Pakistani military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq for the assassination attempt that turned her homecoming into a bloodbath.

"I know exactly who wants to kill me," she told the French magazine Paris-Match. "They are dignitaries of General Zia's former regime who are behind extremism and fanaticism."

Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for one of Pakistan's deadliest bombings, which killed at least 136 people and injured 290.

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In a subsequent press conference at the Karachi home of her parents-in-law, Ms Bhutto said she had been warned on her flight to Pakistan about a plot involving army officers and told three unnamed people were behind it.

Ms Bhutto, wearing a black armband, said she had not wanted all her top party leadership to travel in her truck as she "knew" there might be an assassination attempt.

She praised those who died while protecting her as heroes, and said she did not blame the government for the attack. However, she called for an inquiry as to why street lights had been switched off during her procession.

"If the street lights had been on, we would have spotted the suicide bombers," she said. "The guards had floodlights on, but it was difficult to scan the crowds as there were so many people".

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