Bhutto bombing kicks off war on US
plan By Syed Saleem Shahzad
The first shot has already been fired in
the battle that Islamists have vowed to wage
against the Washington-inspired and brokered
attempt at regime change in Pakistan. It came in
the form of twin bomb blasts aimed at Benazir
Bhutto, the lynchpin in US machinations, within
hours of her arrival in Karachi after years in
exile.
The bombs narrowly missed Bhutto
but killed up to 150 and injured hundreds of the
rapturous supporters who thronged the Karachi
streets to greet her. The windshield of her
vehicle was
shattered and members of her
entourage on the roof of the vehicle were injured.
A car that was part of her convoy was destroyed.
The attack was hardly a surprise.
Militants see Bhutto's return to Pakistani
politics as a Western-backed coup against
Islamists in Pakistan, akin to the arrival in the
Afghan capital, Kabul, of the US-backed Northern
Alliance in 2001. Militant leader Baitullah Mehsud
had instructed pro-al-Qaeda cells in Karachi to
kill her for three major offenses against the
Islamists, which he listed as:
- She is
the only opposition politician who supported the
military attack earlier this year on Islamabad's
Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), a hotbed of Islamist
radicalism, and she coninues to condemn the Lal
Masjid ideologues; - She has stated that she would
allow incursions by US forces into Pakistan in
pursuit of Osama bin Laden; - She has stated that
she would allow the International Atomic Energy
Agency to question Dr A Q Khan, the former leading
nuclear scientist accused of passing Pakistani
nuclear technology to anti-Western countries.
The Western powers were meanwhile
cementing their plan for the future of Pakistan
and the region. On Thursday, the same day as the
bomb attack, Britain's Lord Malloch-Brown, a
minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, arrived in Pakistan to discuss a future
pro-Western government in Islamabad. The day
before, the British Deputy High Commissioner in
Karachi, Hamish Daniel, called on Sindh Governor
Ishratul Ebad to ensure that Bhutto's homecoming
was accorded full protocol.
Bhutto's
return to Pakistan is part of a complex
arrangement brokered by Washington and its allies
to ensure that a pro-Western government gains
power after parliamentary elections in about three
months' time. The plan was put in train earlier
this month with the promulgation of a National
Reconciliation Ordinance, under strong US
pressure, by Pakistan's current leader, General
Pervez Musharraf. Under the ordinance, all charges
against current and former lawmakers who have been
accused of corruption (with Bhutto, a twice former
prime minister, prominent among them), were
dropped. This paved the way for Musharraf's
reelection as president and a political settlement
with Bhutto which, after Musharraf's giving up his
post as chief of the military, would result in a
civilian-based, pro-Western consensus government -
or so Washington hopes. (See From Washington to war in
Waziristan, ATol, Oct 11, 2007)
This is something Pakistan's Islamists are
determined to prevent, and sources say that
Thursday's bombing was just the first of more such
attacks aimed at Western allies in the cities of
Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.
The attack
on Bhutto was very well planned and its style was
identical to bombings in Iraq. No one has claimed
responsibility. The list of suspects is long but
Bhutto herself is pointing a finger at Islamists
elements within Pakistan's Inter Service
Intelligence agency.
I walked past the
site of blasts on Karsaz Road five minutes before
the explosion. The hour of the attack - just
before midnight - was carefully chosen. The crowd
of Bhutto supporters had dwindled to not more than
20,000 people, compared to the 100,000-200,000
people who attended a welcoming rally in the
afternoon. This allowed the attackers to get close
to Bhutto (it is not yet known whether this was a
suicide bombing).
Security personnel of
Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were tired
after a long day and I saw them resting at the
roadside. They were slow to react to the initial
small bomb, and so were trapped when the second,
powerful, bomb detonated a few minutes later. As
is common in Iraq, the first small bomb - hardly
big enough to injure anybody - attracted curious
onlookers who became the victims of the second
bomb.
Coincidentally, Bhutto herself was
tired at this time and 10 minutes before had left
the roof of her truck (where she was protected by
a bullet-proof shield) and had retired inside the
vehicle. Only a few party leaders were on the
roof, and some were injured by the blast.
With friends like this ... This
is the same Benazir Bhutto who only few years ago
was banned from lecturing at European institutions
because of her links to corruption scandals. But
times have changed, and Bhutto once again has won
Western favor.
The deal between Bhutto and
Musharraf was so abrupt and unexpected that even
Bhutto's PPP leaders were unable to defend it,
especially as just a few weeks earlier they had
been agitating against Musharraf over his
suspension of the chief of the judiciary.
Government ministers too were take by surprise,
and when Asia Times Online asked Foreign Minister
Khurshid Mehmood Kusuri about the deal, he
admitted that it had been made under American
pressure.
Although the PPP has released
expensive advertising for Bhutto's homecoming,
feelings against her are running high in some
quarters. Anti-Bhutto media have published a list
of her, her husband's, and her children's declared
assets: they amount to US$1.5 billion, including
all Swiss accounts that are frozen because of
corruption charges.
Western governments
have long shown an affinity for shady characters
in their attempts to organize the globe to their
liking, though the strategy has seldom paid off in
the long term. Thursday's bombings point to
enormous problems ahead if the West is to have its
way in Pakistan.
(Copyright 2007 Asia
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