Daily Times : Pindi suicide hit third in 3 months

Pindi suicide hit third in 3 months

November 25, 2007

RAWALPINDI: The Saturday’s suicide bombings in Rawalpindi were the third strike by suicide bombers on armed forces in the city in the last three months.

On Sept 4, a suicide attacker blew himself up after boarding a bus carrying armed forces employees, while a roadside bomb went off near General Headquarters (GHQ) in RA Bazaar in Rawalpindi minutes, killing at least 25 people and wounded 66.

On Oct 30, a suicide explosion near Army House killed eight people and injured around 18.

AP : 2 Suicide Attacks Kill 35 in Pakistan

2 Suicide Attacks Kill 35 in Pakistan

By MUNIR AHMAD | November 24, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Suicide bombers hit a bus carrying intelligence agency employees and a checkpoint near the headquarters of the Pakistan army on Saturday, killing at least 35 people, officials said.

The two attackers struck in Rawalpindi, a garrison city just south of the capital, Islamabad. A senior intelligence official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work, said at least 35 people were killed.

In the first attack, an explosive-laden car rammed a bus carrying employees from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, while the other bomber hit the checkpoint, said Mohammed Afzal, a local police official.

An intelligence agent at the scene said the destroyed bus was a 72-seater, but that more people were on board. The agent, who also requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work, said he believed casualty number would keep rising.

After the blast, troops and police quickly blocked off the area. They pushed people back and snatched cameras and mobile phones from journalists and bystanders. Agents fanned out across the area, picking up metal bits of what appeared to be the suicide bomber's car.

It was the second major attack against the ISI in recent months. On Sept. 4, a suicide attacker blew himself up after boarding a bus carrying ISI employees, while a roadside bomb went off near a commercial area in Rawalpindi minutes apart, killing at least 25 people.

The latest violence comes as Pakistan remains under a state of emergency, a move by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that has prompted stiff criticism of the military ruler, including from his key Western ally, the United States.

Musharraf declared the state of emergency on Nov. 3, justifying it by citing the escalating danger posed by Islamic extremists, though his critics have noted many of his moves have been against political opponents rather than militants.

Islamic militants have launched dozens of suicide attacks this year. Most have taken place near the Afghan border, but several have taken place in the country's main cities, raising fears that violent extremism is spreading.

A bomber blew himself up in Rawalpindi on Oct. 30 at a checkpoint several hundred yards from the office of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, killing seven people.

Two weeks earlier, a suicide attack on opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's homecoming parade killed more than 140 people in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi.

Authorities cited the risk of further attacks when they barred Bhutto from holding a rally in Rawalpindi last month against Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule.

Tension between militant groups and the military are at a high because of an ongoing military operation to sweep the followers of a pro-Taliban cleric from the northern Swat valley.

NYT : Bombers Kill at Least 15 in Pakistan

Bombers Kill at Least 15 in Pakistan

By REUTERS | November 24, 2007

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Saturday, Nov. 24 (Reuters) — Two suicide bombers killed at least 13 other people on Saturday in the Pakistani garrison town of Rawalpindi adjoining Islamabad, the military said.

One bomber rammed a car into the back of a Defense Ministry bus outside an intelligence service office, killing 13 people on board. The second bomber blew up his car at a checkpoint outside the army headquarters.

The attacks come on the heels of a string of suicide bombings across Pakistan blamed on Islamist militants amid growing insurgency and three weeks after the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared emergency rule.

“There’s a total of 15 people who have lost their lives in the attacks: two suicide bombers and 13 others,” Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said. “There were 50 people sitting in the bus. Many are injured; many are O.K.,” he said.

In addition to the bomber, at least three security officers were wounded near the army headquarters checkpoint.

The remains of the bus were visible just inside the gate of the intelligence service compound before the police cordoned off the area and put up tents to obscure the view. Police officers and soldiers also seized cameras and cellphones of bystanders.

Twin suicide blasts in Rawalpindi in September killed 25 and wounded 70, many of them on an intelligence service bus.

ABC : Pakistan Bombers Kill Despite Crackdown

Pakistan Bombers Kill Despite Crackdown

Despite State of Emergency Intended to Thwart Terror, Dozens May Be Dead

By STEPHANIE SY | ISLAMABAD, Pakistan | November 24, 2007

A day after Pakistan's highest court ruled that emergency rule was "necessary" to thwart terrorism, twin suicide bombs exploded in Rawalpindi, the seat of military power in Pakistan.

The military confirmed 15 people had died, but there were unofficial reports that dozens were killed. Many were critically injured in the blasts.

The attacks were clearly aimed at the military. The explosions occurred Saturday morning within minutes of one another. One of the suicide bombers drove into a bus packed with Ministry of Defense employees assigned to the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. Another suicide bomber struck a checkpoint at the Army's headquarters.

The Army blocked traffic on the major street where the bus bombing occurred and cordoned off the area around the checkpoint. Members of the media were prevented from filming scenes of the attacks, and authorities confiscated cameras.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad told the Associated Press, "There were 50 people sitting in the bus. Many are injured, many are okay."

These are the first suicide bombings since Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, placed the country under emergency rule on Nov. 3.

Part of Musharraf's justification for the emergency action is that the country is under threat of violent extremism, but critics have said that is an excuse for cracking down on thousands of his political opponents. While the bombings may lend credence to Musharraf's assertion about the threat of terrorism, others say the incidents weaken his argument for maintaining emergency rule.

"As far as the fight against terror is concerned, this emergency makes not the slightest difference," said former Pakistani diplomat Humanyun Khan. "That is clear now."

There have been more than 25 suicide attacks in Pakistan since July, several of them aimed at the military.

The latest bombings occurred on the eve of exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's return to Pakistan. Sharif, who was arrested and deported to Saudi Arabia after he tried to enter Pakistan in September, is said to have struck a deal with Saudi King Abdullah that will allow his return.

Under pressure from the Saudis, a close ally of Pakistan, Musharraf is expected to allow Sharif to remain in the country. His return comes a month after another exiled former prime minister and opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, was allowed to return.

Sharif and his party, the Pakistan Muslim League, are preparing to file nomination papers for the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections. However, it is unclear whether they will participate in the elections or boycott them. Among other conditions, Sharif and other opposition leaders are demanding that Musharraf lift emergency rule before the vote is held.

Musharraf has come under intense criticism for actions taken during emergency rule. Besides the mass detentions, he replaced the Supreme Court, suspended the Constitution, and forced television networks off-the-air. It is still not clear whether he will relinquish his emergency authority before the nation holds parliamentary elections in January.

Saturday afternoon, the Election Commission ratified the results of October's presidential election, when Musharraf was re-elected by Parliament to a second five-year term. The official notification of the results was held off until the Supreme Court ruled on six petitions challenging Musharraf's re-election. The last of those petitions was thrown out earlier this week, by a Supreme Court that Musharraf purged of dissenters during his emergency rule.

Musharraf has pledged to take off his uniform before he is sworn in as president. The court has ordered that the oath be administered by Dec. 1.

NYT : Attacks on Pakistani Military Kill 15

Attacks on Pakistani Military Kill 15

By CARLOTTA GALL | November 25, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 24 — Two suicide car bombers attacked military targets on Saturday morning in Rawalpindi, the site of the military’s headquarters, killing at least 15 service members, a military spokesman said. The bombings raised tensions in the country, which is already beset with political and security problems.

The bombings were the latest in a series of attacks on the army and intelligence services, which have been linked to militants fighting an insurgency in northwestern Pakistan. Militants fighting in the Swat valley, a tourist spot just several hours’ drive from the capital, are under pressure from a large-scale military operation mounted last week to push them out of towns and villages in the region.

The military said Friday that it had pushed the militants out of a strategic town of Alpuri, which they occupied several weeks ago.

The country entered its fourth week of political turmoil under de facto martial law, imposed by the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who said it would help him fight terrorism. His opponents accuse him of using his extraordinary powers primarily to secure another presidential term by dismissing the Supreme Court and appointing a new one packed with his supporters.

The police have been deployed in large numbers to detain members of the judiciary, the lawyers’ movement and opposition political parties.

The Election Commission on Saturday confirmed General Musharraf as the winner of the Oct. 6 presidential election, after a ruling by the new Supreme Court rejected challenges to his eligibility to have run for another five-year term as president while holding the top army post. The court said General Musharraf should resign as army chief before taking the presidential oath. The attorney general, Malik Abdul Qayyum, told local news media that the president might take the oath on Wednesday.

A number of opposition parties met Saturday and said they would boycott the parliamentary elections, set for Jan. 8, unless their demands for the lifting of de facto martial law were met within four days. Among them is the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has announced that he will return from exile in Saudi Arabia to his hometown, Lahore, on Sunday. But political parties were also scrambling to meet the Monday deadline for candidates to submit their election papers.

One of Saturday’s bombings in Rawalpindi occurred when a small car rammed a bus full of intelligence personnel just as it was entering the gate of Hamza Camp, a walled compound where the Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Military Intelligence maintain offices and residential buildings.

Fifteen people on the bus died, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the chief military spokesman.

Minutes earlier, another suicide car bomber was turned away from a checkpoint near a side entrance to the army General Headquarters several miles away in another part of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just south of the capital. As he turned the car, he detonated the bomb, killing himself and wounding three soldiers at the checkpoint.

The bombings follow a pattern of recent suicide attacks that military officials say is a sign militants are hitting back at the forces that are pursuing them the hardest in what is a growing struggle. A bomber blew himself up in September in the mess hall of Pakistan’s United States-trained special forces unit, the Special Services Group, killing at least 15.

Also in September, two bombers attacked targets near the military headquarters in Rawalpindi, killing 25. One of the bombers had boarded a bus taking personnel from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency to work, killing 18. On Nov. 1, a bomber on a motorbike rammed an air force bus in the town of Sargodha, killing himself and eight others.

Daily Times : Journalists’ protest enters 16th day

Journalists’ protest enters 16th day

November 26, 2007

ISLAMABAD: The journalists’ movement for lifting of curbs on media entered the 16th day on Sunday. The protest in front of the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club was attended by a large number of media persons including lawyers, who have been regularly attending to show solidarity with the media.

The protestors led by the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ) President Afzal Butt chanted slogans of “we want freedom” and vowed to continue their struggle.

Butt said that the government must withdraw the amended ordinances of Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and Pakistan Press Council. “Until these ordinances are withdrawn and the deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is reinstated we will continue protesting,” he said.

The journalists have been staging protests and holding television programmes, banned by the government, out on the streets.

Nasir Zaidi, a journalist, said the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists’ (PFUJ) struggle for press freedom and ensuring the livelihood of journalists had always been exemplary. “Journalists have made sacrifices in the past and would continue to do so in the days ahead,” he said.

Independent : Suicide blasts kill at least 35 in Pakistan

Suicide blasts kill at least 35 in Pakistan

Today's return of exiled former PM Sharif will add to political turbulence

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent | November 25, 2007

At least 35 people were killed in Pakistan yesterday when suicide bombers struck twice – one attack targeting a bus carrying members of an intelligence agency, the other at an army headquarters check-point. The two explosions took place in Rawalpindi, the military city just south of the capital, Islamabad.

In the first attack a car laden with explosives was driven into a bus carrying staff from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). The bus was apparently a 72-seater vehicle, but more people may have been on board. "We suspect that pro-Taliban militants who are fighting security forces in our tribal areas are behind this attack," an official told the Associated Press.

Hizer Hayat, the owner of a nearby grocery store, said the blast occurred at 7.40 am. "After the explosion, I went out on the street and found the ignition switch for a car amid the debris. I later gave it to an intelligence agent," he said. The attack was the second major assault against the ISI in recent months. In September a suicide bomber detonated a device after boarding an ISI bus, also in Rawalpindi. On that occasion 25 people were killed.

Islamic militants have been blamed for dozens of suicide attacks this year. Most have occurred near the Afghan border, but several have taken place in the country's main cities. In Afghanistan, suicide attacks have also shot up, with more than 130 this year. The latest, against Italian troops building a bridge west of Kabul, killed nine civilians yesterday, including three children, and an Italian soldier.

Amid political turmoil in Pakistan, the former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is expected to arrive back in the country today after seven years in exile. He is due to fly to Lahore from Saudi Arabia. Mr Sharif previously tried to return in September, only to be immediately deported by President Pervez Musharraf. Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a former cabinet minister and close aide to Gen Musharraf, said that on this occasion Mr Sharif would not be pushed out.

His return will add a new ingredient to Pakistan's already turbulent political stew. Unlike another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, he has always ruled out any sort of deal with Gen Musharraf, who ousted him in a military coup in 1999 and forced him to leave the country.

Ihsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Mr Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party, said the Saudis had been stung by criticism in Pakistan, and were also aware that Gen Musharraf had scheduled parliamentary elections for 8 January. "They don't want Saudi Arabia to become an election issue in Pakistan," Mr Iqbal said.

Daily Times : 30 killed in two suicide attacks in Rawalpindi

30 killed in two suicide attacks in Rawalpindi

* Attack on bus kills 28 ISI meng Two die in attack near GHQ
* ISPR confirms 16 deaths
* Private ambulances, police not allowed near sites

By Aamir Yasin and Imran Asghar | November 25, 2007

RAWALPINDI: Two separate suicide car bombings on Saturday morning rocked the garrison town of Rawalpindi, killing at least 30 people and injuring dozens more.

The first incident occurred at 7.49am when a suicide bomber rammed his car into a 72-seater bus parked in front of Ojhri Camp on Murree Road. The bus, which was carrying Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials to work, was completely destroyed according to eyewitnesses. They said 28 officials and a bystander were killed in addition to the bomber.

Shoaib Abbasi, owner of the Oriel guesthouse across the street from the intelligence compound, said that when he came out on the street after the blast, the bus was burning fiercely, reported AP. “Firemen tried to open the emergency doors while they were dousing the interior, but I can’t believe anyone inside survived because of the intensity of the fire,” he said.

GHQ attack: The second incident occurred at 8.05am as a second suicide bomber attempted to enter the General Headquarters (GHQ). Upon being asked for identification at the GHQ’s checkpost, he blew himself up, resulting in the deaths of one security official and a bystander, according to eyewitnesses.

ISPR claims: Meanwhile, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said 16 people were killed in both incidents. “Sixteen persons, including a suicide bomber, died in the suicide attack on a Ministry of Defence vehicle near Hamza Camp on Murree Road,” it said. It said the suicide bomber hit the rear of the bus, which was carrying almost 50 people. “In another incident, a suicide bomber riding in a car blew himself up near the GHQ checkpost. Two security personnel are critically injured,” it added. “Both were suicide attacks,” confirmed army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad.

Two senior intelligence officials, requesting not to be named, told AP that at least 35 people were killed. One of them, who was at the scene of the attack on the bus, said the bus was overloaded and it was believed that more than 72 people had been killed or injured.

Sealed off: Troops sealed off the entire area around Hamza Camp and GHQ soon after the blasts and no police official was allowed access to the two spots. Similarly, private ambulances were also not allowed to shift the injured and the dead to the military hospitals.

President General Pervez Musharraf and caretaker Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro condemned the two suicide blasts and expressed their grief and sorrow over the deaths that occurred. Gen Musharraf said the government would continue its crackdown against the elements that were behind the attacks and would expose them before the public. He said the government’s fight against terrorism would continue with more vigour.

Soomro, meanwhile, said the country would not be blackmailed by the elements behind the attacks. He directed the Rawalpindi administration and heads of hospitals to provide the best medical care to the injured. He also directed law enforcing agencies and police to step up security.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the incident on a private TV Channel and said this would affect the election process, as there would be less voter-turnout, reported Online.

LAT : Sharif gets a hero's welcome

Sharif gets a hero's welcome

Ten of thousands of supporters hail the deported leader's return to Pakistan as the politics get more complicated.

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | November 25, 2007

LAHORE, Pakistan -- Tens of thousands of cheering, chanting supporters showered former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with rose petals as he triumphantly returned from exile today, posing a thorny new challenge not only to President Pervez Musharraf but also to the pro-Western opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Sharif's comeback, just 11 weeks after he was summarily deported by Musharraf, the military leader who once overthrew him, marks a complex new phase in the political turmoil that has gripped the nuclear-armed country, a key U.S. ally, for much of the year.

As Musharraf-decreed emergency rule enters its fourth week, his opponents are jockeying for position, seeking an advantage not only against him but possibly against one another as well. Sharif is more religiously conservative and less overtly friendly to the West than either Musharraf or Bhutto.

"Obviously, it's huge," said University of Oregon professor Anita Weiss of Sharif's return. The author of several books on Pakistan said that many Pakistanis see in Sharif "a mature, elder" -- she paused for emphasis -- "male statesman."

In Lahore, the eastern city that is Pakistan's political nerve center, Sharif's backers sought to muster a display of support comparable to the enormous crowds that turned out to welcome Bhutto last month -- before her homecoming procession was shattered by a suicide bombing that killed nearly 150 people.

"Look at all these people," said party leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, shouting to be heard in the airport's cavernous arrival terminal, which was filled with chanting supporters who had surged past police barricades. "And we had only a few days' notice."

The celebrations, which drew tens of thousands of people, continued long into the night

Sharif's plans were finalized Friday after a meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, who flew the former leader here in a special plane and provided him with a bulletproof Mercedes, which he did not use, however, for his tumultuous journey into the center of Lahore from the airport.

With fireworks arcing into the sky, supporters danced in front of his convoy, slowing progress to a crawl. Honking cars and buses, with flag-waving supporters dangling from rooftops and out windows, jammed the road long into the night.

Sharif, clad in a traditional white shalwar khameez, or tunic and baggy trousers, topped with a black vest, told supporters he had not made compromises with Musharraf to be allowed back into his homeland.

"My return is not the result of any deal!" he told the crowd at the airport.

Much of the impetus for Sharif's return is thought to have come from Saudi Arabia, which was embarrassed by its role in the previous deportation. Musharraf, who made a 24-hour visit to the kingdom last week, was reportedly told by Saudi officials they were unwilling to risk prestige and popularity by appearing to hold Sharif against his will.

Amid the jubilation today, Sharif's followers appeared to ignore that he was an unpopular prime minister in 1999, when Musharraf's coup was widely welcomed. As Pakistan's leader, he was plagued by accusations of corruption and incompetence.

"It shows how much there is hunger for change," said Khalid Butt, the editor of the Pakistan Observer.

At the airport, supporters hoisted Sharif and his politician brother, Shabbaz, onto their shoulders, shouting, "Nawaz, Nawaz!" And "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif!"

"After all these years, our leader is home," said Hajira Rasheed, a party worker in her 50s who wore a baseball cap emblazoned with Sharif's image.

The arrival came on the eve of the deadline for registering to take part in parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8. Party officials said Sharif and his wife and brother would all register as candidates, though the party still held open the option of a boycott.

Bhutto, too, prepared to register her candidacy on Monday, signaling that her Pakistan Peoples Party was probably unwilling to sit out the contest. Opposition parties say it would be extremely difficult to hold a free and fair election while the country remains under de facto martial law.

Under the decree, Musharraf suspended the constitution, fired the chief justice and imposed curbs on independent news channels.

"The constitution of Pakistan should be restored, and there should be rule of law," Sharif told his supporters at the airport.

Even if Sharif's party agrees to take part in the upcoming vote, it was not clear whether he himself would be allowed to run, because he has criminal convictions stemming from his efforts to resist Musharraf's coup against him.

Musharraf turned on Sharif after the then-prime minister tried to fire him. Their confrontation came to a dramatic climax when Sharif tried to prevent Musharraf's plane from landing after a trip abroad. The general was able to make radio contact with senior military staff on the ground, and the takeover was complete by the time his plane landed.

Musharraf promised to step down as military chief by month's end after his new loyalist Supreme Court ruled last week that his election by parliament last month was legal.

In the wake of Musharraf's coup, Sharif was charged with offenses including treason and hijacking and, in a plea bargain, agreed to go into exile for 10 years. He later said that pledge was made under duress.

Party officials said hundreds of Sharif supporters were rounded up by dawn, hours before his arrival, in a harsh reminder that Musharraf still wields sweeping powers in the wake of his Nov. 3 emergency decree. Police disputed the figures, saying those detained amounted only to dozens.

More than 5,000 people, most of them lawyers, human-rights activists and opposition politicians, were jailed in the days following Musharraf's decree. Many have since been released, but new arrests are still taking place, and several of the country's most senior lawyers remain in prison.

A day before Sharif's arrival, suicide bombers struck a heavily fortified area of Rawalpindi, the site of Pakistan's military headquarters. Up to three dozen people died in that attack, the first major suicide bombing since the start of emergency rule.

Musharraf said the escalating Islamic insurgency was the main reason for his emergency decree, although most observers believe the real aim was to silence the Supreme Court, led by activist Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Chaudhry, fired in the first hours of emergency rule, effectively remains under house arrest.

The re-emergence of Sharif as a political force poses a fresh quandary for Musharraf, who has come under heavy international criticism for his emergency declaration.

Musharraf's own party is a breakaway from the party Sharif heads, which still retains a large following and would be well positioned to siphon off support from the general.

It was unclear whether Sharif might try to ally himself politically with Bhutto. Some analysts believe Musharraf relented and allowed Sharif to return to diminish Bhutto's role as the main opposition leader.

Sharif's earlier homecoming, on Sept. 9, lasted less than four hours. When his plane landed in Islamabad's international airport, he never managed to make it out of the terminal. Musharraf's government sealed off the airport, and waiting government forces bundled Sharif onto a plane back to Saudi Arabia.

laura.king@latimes.com

AP : Former PM Sharif Returns to Pakistan

Former PM Sharif Returns to Pakistan

By SLOBODAN LEKIC | November 25, 2007

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned home to a hero's welcome Sunday and called on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to end emergency rule before elections, a fresh challenge to the U.S.-backed leader.

"These (emergency) conditions are not conducive to free and fair elections," Sharif told reporters at the airport after arriving from Saudi Arabia. "I think the constitution of Pakistan should be restored, and there should be rule of law."

Sharif, the head of one of the country's main opposition parties, said he had not negotiated his return with Musharraf, who overthrew him in a 1999 coup. Musharraf expelled Sharif when he first tried come back to Pakistan this year.

"My return is not the result of any deal," Sharif told reporters. "My life and death are for Pakistan."

Thousands of frenzied supporters pushed past police barricades into the airport in this eastern city, carrying Sharif and his brother on their shoulders and cheering wildly as Sharif stood among them on a raised platform. An armored car carrying Sharif left the airport on a procession toward a shrine in the center of the city, surrounded by screaming supporters.

Musharraf has grown increasingly unpopular since he declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3, locking up thousands of opponents, purging the Supreme Court and muzzling the media.

If Sharif and other opposition parties refuse to take part in parliamentary elections slated for January, it would undermine Musharraf's claim to be taking the country back toward democracy. Equally tricky for Musharraf would be an alliance between Sharif and another recently returned prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

"If they come to us with a proposal of any electoral alliance, we will consider this positively," Bhutto said aboard a flight from Karachi to her hometown of Larkana, in southern Pakistan. "I welcome him home."

A spokesman for Sharif's part said he, his brother and his wife will all file papers Monday that would allow them to run if they choose to do so.

The presidential spokesman was not available Sunday for comment on Sharif's return.

However, the pro-Musharraf ruling party, which broke away from Sharif's group after the coup, is already wooing him as a potential ally.

Ruling party spokesman Tariq Azim urged the Sharif camp to "forget the old egos and start with a clean slate."

The scene at Lahore airport was eerily reminiscent of the early jubilation that greeted Bhutto when she came back to her home city of Karachi in October, but the number of supporters was far lower. Bhutto's return was greeted by a massive suicide bomb which killed about 150 people in a procession through the streets.

In a reminder that Pakistan remains under emergency rule, security forces had rounded up some Sharif activists and attempted to seal off the airport.

But the supporters who found their way through tight security swarmed into the terminal building waving the green flag of his party and shouting slogans including "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif!" and "Go, Musharraf, go!"

Police lifted batons to drive them back from the arrival area, but had no space to swing them amid the dancing, jubilant crowds.

Television footage showed Sharif, dressed in his trademark white shirt and a dark waistcoat, on an airport stairwell next to his brother, also a politician, and surrounded by security officials, waving to the cameras.

Tight security that had surrounded Sharif after his plane touched down appeared to melt away amid the chaos.

Both Bhutto and Sharif have been seeking to return to power after the parliamentary elections. But the ballot, which the West hopes will produce a moderate government able to stand up to Islamic extremism, has been thrown into confusion by Musharraf's seizure of emergency powers.

Major opposition parties — including Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party — have been lining up to take part in the elections with preliminary steps such as filing nomination papers.

Bhutto, a more liberal and openly pro-U.S. politician than Sharif, filed her papers to contest the election on Sunday in Karachi. She says her party could still pull out if Musharraf doesn't ensure the vote is fair.

Sharif indicated his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, would demand a restoration of constitutional rule before it took part in the vote, but that any decision on whether to boycott would be taken in conjunction with other groups.

Sharif has been angling for a return ever since Musharraf overthrew him and gave the jailed politician a choice: accept 10 years of exile or face life in prison on charges including hijacking and terrorism. The charges stemmed from Sharif's desperate attempts to turn away a packed civilian plane carrying Musharraf — then the army chief — back from a trip abroad.

As the Pakistan International Airways plane ran low on fuel, Musharraf used the cockpit radio to contact his senior commanders on the ground, who quickly took over the country. By the time the plane touched down in the southern city of Karachi, Musharraf was Pakistan's new leader and Sharif was under arrest.

In September Sharif boarded a flight from London to Islamabad, but police in the Pakistani capital swiftly sent him back to Saudi Arabia.

This time, the Saudi leadership reportedly pressured Pakistan to accept him. Saudi King Abdullah provided the plane that carried Sharif home.

Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Sharif's party, said some 1,800 activists were detained in a crackdown ahead of the former premier's return.

However, federal Information Minister Nisar Memon said he was exaggerating.

"There are no arrests as such," Memon said. "About 100 people have been confined so that they do not create any issues. We don't want the same mess as there was in Karachi."

Authorities issued no warnings that Islamic militants bitterly opposed to Musharraf and Bhutto for their pro-U.S. police might target the religiously conservative Sharif.

However, his arrival came one day after suicide bombers killed up to 35 people in nearly simultaneous blasts at the heart of Pakistan's security establishment in Rawalpindi, a garrison city adjacent to the capital, Islamabad.

It was not clear who was behind the explosions — which targeted a bus carrying intelligence agency workers and a checkpoint near army headquarters — but authorities said suspicion rested on Islamist militants who are fighting an increasingly bloody insurgency against government troops in the northwest of the country.

The army said Sunday that 30 pro-Taliban fighters and one Pakistani soldier died in an operation to capture militant positions in the Swat valley, a former tourist destination just 100 miles from Islamabad.

Musharraf cited rising religious extremism as a reason for declaration a state of emergency. However, many of those targeted under the crackdown have been political opponents, lawyers and members of the media.

More than 5,500 people have been detained since the crackdown began, but authorities insist virtually all have been freed since last weekend, when visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte urged Musharraf to restore the constitution.

Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan and Paul Haven in Islamabad and Abdullah Shihri in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.

WaPo : Political Talk Defies Ban in Pakistan

Political Talk Defies Ban in Pakistan

Forced Off Television, Popular Panel Shows Set Up in the Street

By Pamela Constable | Washington Post Foreign Service | November 25, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 24 -- Pakistan's popular TV talk shows, once touted by the government as proof of democratic progress but now banned from broadcasting, took to the streets this week, drawing enthusiastic crowds around a sidewalk stage that replicates a studio set and engaging politicians and pundits in vigorous debates about the country's political crisis.

Most Pakistanis cannot see or hear the shows, but the phenomenon has quickly become a significant forum for opinion and grievances under emergency rule, imposed by President Pervez Musharraf on Nov. 3. It has also become a gleefully subversive form of political theater, circumventing official efforts to silence more sophisticated forms of critical communication.

On Friday, hundreds of spectators gathered for the open-air edition of "Capital Talk," a panel show on Geo television hosted by journalist Hamid Mir. His headline guest was Imran Khan, the former cricket champion and opposition leader fresh from a week in prison, who called on all political parties to boycott "illegitimate" national elections scheduled for January.

The crowd cheered Khan, booed a rival politician, threw rose petals on the stage and chanted, "Go, Musharraf, go!" An elderly man wandered about, holding up a poster of his missing son. A sound van played Pakistani rock; an open truck carried a protester tied to a cross. Riot police, watching from a distance, barred traffic but did not intervene.

Despite the raucous atmosphere of the live shows, the struggle to keep press freedom alive and information flowing under emergency rule has become a determined, sometimes dangerous crusade. The government, having encouraged news media to flourish more boldly than at any time in Pakistan's history, has now decided to sharply rein them in, ostensibly in the name of political stability and anti-terrorism.

Protests by journalists in several cities have been met by stick-wielding police, and dozens of reporters have been detained. Popular talk shows have been forced off the air, and broadcast media have been required to accept a detailed "code of conduct" that, among other things, says they may not transmit material that could "defame or ridicule" the government or its officials.

"Basically they are saying we cannot criticize at all, so what is the use of journalism?" demanded Mir, 41, who is the Islamabad manager of Geo.

"Pakistan's media has tasted freedom now, and it will never be satisfied with less," he added. "The government is trying to stop critical coverage, but the common people and the elites are telling us not to back down. Nobody can stop the change."

Although the print media, especially the English-language newspapers read by the country's tiny elite, have been allowed to continue publishing acerbic anti-government commentary and cartoons, the native-language broadcast media -- far more important in a country with a high illiteracy rate -- has come under aggressive attack.

In addition to banning the celebrity-hosted political shows that are de rigueur nightly viewing for the country's educated classes, officials have confiscated satellite dishes from stores and asked foreign countries to stop the transmission of cable channels into Pakistan. Geo, which has broadcast from Dubai since 2002, is now totally off the air.

"Musharraf was fighting for survival and he had his back to the wall. As far as he was concerned, the source of his problems were the judiciary, the legal community and the electronic media," said Ayaz Amir, an influential newspaper columnist. "The printed press has gone on the offensive, but it is physically much easier to block electronic media and make the screen go black, so they did it."

Viewers tuning to Geo in Pakistan today see only static with a sign saying, "Dear Users: Please note that Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has temporarily suspended transmission of independent news TV channels until further instructions."

Another cable channel, ARY One World, was shut down for 18 days and returned this week after entering into an unofficial agreement to stop broadcasting its major talk show. Staff members celebrated Friday night with a candlelight vigil outside the station's offices. Inside, staffers edited excerpts from the sidewalk edition of "Capital Talk" to mention in their newscast later that night.

"We have agreed to some issues, but we have not accepted their dictates. We are giving full coverage to all political activities," said Mohsin Raza, the Islamabad news director. He said that the government had squeezed the channel by detaining several correspondents but that authorities were under international pressure not to shut down independent TV entirely.

A third channel, Aaj, was also returned to the air after dropping another popular talk show. Its host, journalist Talat Hussain, said that for the past several years, the late-night panel discussions and their high-profile anchors had "defined issues and given people perspectives" that often contradicted the official version put out on state media.

"We always had an uneasy and dangerous existence, and our transmissions were constantly being interrupted," Hussain said. "This time, they were going for the bigger kill, so they decided to black us out."

If his show were on the air today, he added, "we would say that Musharraf has abrogated the constitution and imposed martial law. But you will not see that issue debated in Pakistan now. Until the country is back on a constitutional, normal path, I can't see this problem being resolved."

For English speakers and foreign communities in major cities, there is still ample access to a variety of political views, including anti-government newspaper commentaries and cartoons, and carefully mild political debates on daytime TV talk shows. Even under emergency rule, columnists have freely lambasted Musharraf as a dictator, often in heavily sarcastic language.

The Jang Group corporation, which controls the News International newspaper as well as Geo, has confronted Musharraf and emergency rule head on. In a scathing editorial last week, editors at the News said they would stand up for press independence even if it meant losing millions of dollars. They accused Musharraf of "paranoia" verging on "madness" and demanded that he end his "draconian reign of terror."

But newspapers have tiny circulations in this country of 165 million, so only a handful of Pakistanis will ever read such stirring calls to resistance, let alone hear them on Geo. Despite pleas from Jang officials, the United Arab Emirates government, washing its hands of Pakistani politics, agreed to pull the plug on Geo's transmissions last week.

Now, the only way for Pakistanis to tune in to "Capital Talk" is to physically follow its host, guests and studio set -- complete with a semicircle of chairs around a coffee table with a fake-flower arrangement -- to the national university campus, where it was held Thursday, or the sidewalk in front of the ramshackle offices of the Islamabad-Rawalpindi Press Club, where it was located Friday.

As the street audience cheered and cackled, applauded and hissed at comments from various speakers on the stage, Mir seemed to be presiding over one of the few genuine -- if messy -- democratic events Pakistan has seen in a long time.
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"It is our duty to tell the people what is happening in our country, and we will continue to do so, even if we have to conduct our programs in the footpaths," he vowed.

Below the stage, the audience -- a hodgepodge of opposition activists, sidewalk vendors, old men in religious caps, students with irreverent posters and even a retired army officer or two -- burst into wild applause.

NYT : Two Blasts Target Pakistani Military

Two Blasts Target Pakistani Military

By CARLOTTA GALL | November 24, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 24 — Two suicide car bombers attacked military targets this morning in Rawalpindi, the site of military headquarters, killing at least 15 service personnel, a military spokesman said. The bombings raise tensions in the country, which is already beset with political and security problems.

The attacks were the latest in a series of attacks on the army and intelligence service that have been linked to militants fighting an insurgency in north-western Pakistan. Militants fighting in the Swat valley, a tourist spot just several hours drive from the capital, are under pressure from a large-scale military operation mounted last week to push them out of towns and villages in the region. The military said Friday that it had pushed the militants out of a strategic town of Alpuri, which they had occupied several weeks ago.

The bombings also come as the country entered its fourth week of political turmoil under de facto martial law, imposed by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. While General Musharraf said he is trying to fight terrorism, his opponents accuse him of using his extraordinary powers primarily to secure another presidential term for himself. He recently dismissed the Supreme Court and appointed a new one packed with supporters who have removed judicial obstacles to his remaining in power. Police have been deployed in large numbers to detain members of the judiciary and lawyers’ movement, and opposition political parties over the last three weeks.

The Election Commission today confirmed General Musharraf as the winner of the Oct. 6 presidential election, following a ruling by the newly appointed Supreme Court dismissing challenges to his eligibility to stand for another five year term as president while still holding the top army post. The court ordered General Musharraf to resign as chief of the army before taking the oath as president. The Attorney General, Malik Abdul Qayyum, talking to local news channels, said the president may take the oath on Wednesday.

A number of opposition parties met today and said they would boycott the parliamentary elections set for Jan. 8 unless their demands for the lifting of emergency rule were met within four days. Among them is the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who has announced he will return from exile in Saudi Arabia to his home town of Lahore on Sunday. But political parties were also scrambling to meet the Monday deadline for candidates to submit their election papers.

One of today’s bombings occurred when a small car rammed a bus full of intelligence personnel just as it was entering the gate of Hamza Camp, a walled compound where the intelligence agency, the InterServices Intelligence, and Military Intelligence maintain offices and residential buildings. The bus was packed with security personnel arriving for work.

Fifteen people on the bus died, as did the suicide bomber, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the chief military spokesman.

Minutes earlier another suicide bomber in a car was turned away from a check point near a side entrance to the army General Head Quarters several miles away in another part of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just south of the capital. As he turned the car, he detonated the bomb, killing himself and wounding three army personnel manning the checkpoint. The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed official at the scene, reported that as many as 35 people died altogether, 33 in the bus and two more at the checkpoint.

The bombings follow a pattern of recent suicide attacks on special forces and intelligence personnel that military officials say is a sign that militants are hitting back at the forces that are pursuing them the hardest in what is an escalating struggle. A bomber blew himself up in September in the mess hall of Pakistan’s American-trained special forces unit, the Special Services Group, killing at least 15 men and wounding more.

Also in September, two bombers attacked targets near the military head quarters in Rawalpindi, killing 25. One of the bombers boarded a bus taking personnel from the InterServices Intelligence to work and killed 18 intelligence workers. On Nov. 1, a bomber on a motorbike rammed an Air Force bus in the town of Sargodha, killing himself and eight people.

WaPo : Two Suicide Attacks Heighten Tension in Pakistan

Two Suicide Attacks Heighten Tension in Pakistan

Musharraf Rival Preparing to Return From Exile Today

By Pamela Constable | Washington Post Foreign Service | November 25, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 24 -- Fears of renewed terrorist violence in this tense country, now ending its third week under emergency rule, were heightened by nearly simultaneous suicide bombings near two military compounds Saturday morning that killed at least 15 people.

The attacks occurred as former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, a key political rival of President Pervez Musharraf, prepared to return from exile Sunday.

One explosion occurred when a suicide bomber crashed a car into a bus that was carrying employees of the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency to a highly guarded urban compound about 10 miles from this capital city. Officials said that 15 people in the bus and the attacker were killed in the 7:45 a.m. blast and that many others were injured. Some reports put the death toll as high as 35.

"I heard a big bang and I saw the bus in flames," said Wazir Gul Abassi, who owns a small hotel across the street from the intelligence compound. "The firetruck came 15 minutes later, and they tried to open the doors, but they failed. I don't see how anyone inside survived."

The second bomb exploded when a car tried to pass through a checkpoint outside army headquarters, several miles from the other attack. The area was deserted, and no one was killed, but two guards manning the post were injured, authorities said. No group asserted responsibility for either attack, and officials said they did not know who was behind them.

The explosions marked the first suicide bombings in Pakistan since Musharraf, who is also Pakistan's army chief, imposed emergency rule Nov. 3, cracking down on political and media dissent and removing members of the Supreme Court who were hearing legal challenges to his recent reelection.

The timing of the twin bombings evoked comparisons with a far more lethal suicide attack Oct. 18, when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto returned home after eight years in exile. Her motorcade was moving through a tumultuous welcoming throng in the city of Karachi when a bomb went off nearby, missing Bhutto but killing more than 140 people.

Sharif was overthrown by Musharraf in a bloodless coup eight years ago and is a far more bitter rival than Bhutto, who recently tried to make a power-sharing deal with Musharraf. Sharif flew back to Pakistan earlier this fall from exile in Saudi Arabia, but he was not allowed to leave the plane and was sent back.

This week, Sharif and his family announced he would return again, in time to meet the Tuesday deadline for filing as a candidate for parliamentary elections the government has scheduled for January. Musharraf traveled to Saudi Arabia last week and met with officials there, generating speculation that he was trying to stop Sharif's return.

If Sharif is successful in coming home this time, analysts said, his presence will dramatically alter the political equation here. The government has been trying to stage a controlled transition to civilian rule, in which Musharraf would step down as army chief and take office as a civilian president, probably later this week.

After that, the official plan is to proceed with the parliamentary elections, but it is not clear whether emergency rule would be lifted by then. Even if it is, critics say it will be virtually impossible to hold credible polls so soon after the arrests of thousands of opposition party activists. Bhutto has been placed under house arrest twice, and a handful of key opposition leaders are still in jail.

Government opponents are divided and confused about whether to participate in the elections. Bhutto already has filed candidacy papers, but leaders from several other parties have dismissed the polls as a sham. Sharif has said he hopes to forge a broad coalition against the elections, but he, his wife and several other relatives are also in the process of filing their candidacy papers for parliament.

No evidence connected Saturday's bombs directly to Pakistan's political contest, however, and the choice of military targets suggested they were more likely linked to the current intensive fighting between Pakistani troops and Islamic fighters in the Swat Valley and nearby tribal regions in northwestern Pakistan.

Musharraf has said he declared emergency rule in part to have a freer hand in combating terrorism and extremism, which have been spreading across the tribal northwest as well as other areas along the border with Afghanistan. In the past two weeks, thousands of army troops have been deployed to Swat, the current epicenter of the clash. Civilians have been evacuated from some areas because of the fighting.

Suicide bombers have struck government and military targets near Rawalpindi several times this fall. On Oct. 30, a bomber attacked near Musharraf's office, killing seven people. In September, two bomb blasts the same day left 25 people dead, including passengers on another bus carrying employees of the military intelligence service.

On Saturday morning, the guarded military compound in Rawalpindi was swarming with uniformed police and plainclothes agents, who repeatedly tried to prevent journalists from talking to bystanders and witnesses. Two Pakistani TV crews said police had confiscated their cameras, and a driver for two foreign journalists was threatened.

Large carpets had been strung across the entrance to the camp, and a firetruck was parked in front of it. Across the street, the wall of a commercial building, made of green-glass windows, was shattered in jagged patterns. Shards of glass and small pieces of twisted metal from the car used in the attack were also on the ground.

Ambulances from the compound were seen heading toward a government hospital, but the entire area was cordoned off by police, as was the scene of the bombing near army headquarters.

Special correspondent Shezad Khurram contributed to this report.

IHT : Family urges Pakistan to drop extradition of British bomb plot suspect

Family urges Pakistan to drop extradition of British bomb plot suspect

The Associated Press | November 22, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The family of Rashid Rauf, a British Muslim suspected of involvement in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners, appealed Thursday to Pakistani authorities to drop proceedings to extradite him to Britain and release him from custody.

"Rashid did nothing wrong and he is innocent and this has been proved in the court of law too ... please release him, let him meet his family and his two daughters," said his wife, Saira Rashid.

Rauf, who is of Pakistani origin, was arrested here in August 2006 on a tip from British investigators. He has been described as a key suspect in a purported plot to blow up jetliners flying from Britain to the United States which prompted a major security alert at airports worldwide and increased restrictions on carry-on items.

Rauf was arrested and charged in Pakistan with possessing chemicals that could be used in making explosives and with carrying forged travel documents. But the prosecution later withdrew the case against him, and the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi ordered his release.

Britain had asked Pakistan to hand over Rauf in connection with a 2002 murder inquiry in Britain that is separate from the alleged terrorism plot.

Rashid remains in jail awaiting a decision on the British request.

His lawyer, Hashmat Habib, said he has filed a petition to block the move, saying the two countries did not have an extradition treaty and that Rashid had already been found innocent of involvement in terrorism.

Members of Rashid's family said they also would appeal directly to Pakistan's human rights minister to block any extradition.

Cageprisoners dot com : Illegal Extradition of Rashid Rauf

Illegal Extradition of Rashid Rauf

Human Rights Organizations, both National & International are to strongly react to the proposed illegal Extradition of Rashid Rauf S/O [son of] Abdul Rauf To Britain by the Government of Pakistan

November 21, 2007

Rashid Rauf was arrested from Bahawalpur in August, 2006 and shown arrested at Airport Police Station on false charges regarding terrorism on 7th November, 2007.

Rashid Rauf was given a release order on account of being innocent by the Anti Terrorist Court, Rawalpindi, comprising Sakhi Muhammad Khaut.

It was ordered that on 15th November, 2007 he will be released.

His uncle went to receive him on 15th November, 2007. But he was shown a document saying that the British Government is seeking Rashid's extradition, therefore it is apprehended that he is to be implicated under some false offences on the basis of which he could be handed over to the British government.

Newspaper reports suggest that since there is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and UK, therefore it would be an illegal act on the part of the Government, to hand him over to Britain.

The spouse of Rashid and two of his innocent daughters have traveled to Islamabad all the way long from Bahawalpur in miserable condition.

They have appealed for Rashid's release and demanded from the government that they should be allowed to meet him. They also pleaded not to hand him over to any other country.

Since he has been released by all Pakistani Courts, and there is no charge against him and that on the basis of false fabricated accusation, no Pakistani national can be handed over to any other country.

Lexington-Herald Leader : Court orders British suspect freed

Court orders British suspect freed

Sadaqat Jan | AP | NOvember 15, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan ordered the release Thursday of a Briton suspected in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners, his lawyer said.

The court in Rawalpindi ordered the release of Rashid Rauf, a British Muslim of Pakistani origin, after the prosecution withdrew the case against him, attorney Hashmat Habib said. The lawyer said Rauf is likely to be deported to Britain.

A court official confirmed the lawyer's account. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.

Pakistani police arrested Rauf in August 2006 on a tip from British authorities and have described him as a key suspect in an alleged plot to blow up jetliners flying from Britain to the United States. The purported plot prompted a major security alert at airports and increased restrictions on carry-on items.

Rauf had been charged in Pakistan with possessing chemicals that could be used in making explosives and with carrying forged travel documents.

Habib said he had already filed a petition with a higher court seeking an order to block Rauf's deportation.

Britain had asked Pakistan to extradite Rauf in connection with a 2002 murder inquiry in Britain that is separate from the alleged terrorism plot.

Guardian : Suspected Atlantic airline plotter faces deportation

Suspected Atlantic airline plotter faces deportation

Declan Walsh, Richard Norton-Taylor, and Vikram Dodd | The Guardian | November 16, 2007

* Extradition edges closer as Pakistan charges dropped
* Man also wanted for questioning over murder

A key suspect behind an alleged plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic appeared last night to be a step closer to being extradited to Britain after a court in Pakistan dropped charges against him there.

Rashid Rauf, a British-Pakistani whom West Midlands police also want to speak to in connection with his uncle's murder in Birmingham, was kept in custody pending extradition proceedings by Britain.

"He is being illegally held and they want to deport him," said Hashmat Habib, who represented Rauf at a hearing in an anti-terrorism court earlier yesterday. Habib said Rauf had been taken to Adiala jail near Rawalpindi.

But a senior official in Islamabad with close knowledge of the case insisted that Rauf would not be deported soon. "A legal procedure is being followed and sudden deportation is not on the cards," he said.

British officials said last night there was no intention to try to extradite Rauf "without due process".

Rauf went to Pakistan after the murder in Birmingham of his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, in August 2002. Following the fatal stabbing, Rauf settled in Bahawalpur, southern Punjab, where his relatives had a close friend who owned a madrasa.

He was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006, shortly after British police and MI5 uncovered an apparent al-Qaida-inspired plot in Britain to bomb passenger jets crossing the Atlantic.

Rauf's arrest was described as the trigger that led investigators to start an immediate pre-emptive arrest operation in Britain and to introduce stringent security measures, particularly at airports.

Aftab Khan Sherpao, the Pakistani interior minister, said at the time: "We arrested him [Rauf] from the border area and on his disclosure we shared the information with British authorities, which led to further arrests in Britain."

Pakistani officials also claimed Rauf had links with al-Qaida.

Pakistani police said they discovered 29 bottles of hydrogen peroxide, a household chemical which can be used to make bombs, in a Rawalpindi house where Rauf was staying. His family in Pakistan said the charges against him were "cooked up". One family member told the Guardian he had bought the hydrogen peroxide to bleach his beard.

The terrorism charges were thrown out at an earlier court hearing, and since then he has been detained on charges of impersonation and producing false identity papers.

Instead of seeking his extradition on terrorism charges, Britain has made an application in relation to the murder of his uncle.

The Crown Prosecution Service, which sent lawyers to Pakistan this year to try to smooth the way for the extradition, would only say last night that the process to send Rauf back to the UK had begun.

A source said that once Rauf was back in the UK he would be questioned by West Midlands police about the murder allegation but could be questioned about "other matters" such as alleged terrorism.

Although the UK and Pakistan do not have an extradition agreement it can be done on a case by case basis. Islamabad, a UK official said, can be reluctant to extradite people to the west for terrorism allegations, but is more willing to do so for murder charges.

Human rights activist Amna Janjua said she had spoken with Rauf's relatives. "They are fearing the authorities will deport him to jail," she said. "His wife is so upset she has been taken to hospital." Janjua accused Britain of being involved in an illegal deportation. "He is being sold, or the government is trying to please the west," she said.

Habib was standing in for Rauf's normal lawyer, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqi, who has been jailed as part of a crackdown on lawyers under the 13-day-old emergency rule.

Last month Siddiqi told the Guardian that he did not expect his client would get due process. "Had there been no accusation from the Britishers, he would have been acquitted by the courts by now. The only influence on this case is that he is wanted by the British," he said.

The Guardian reported in March that in increasingly tense discussions, ministers in Pakistan asked for something in return for Rauf. In a proposed swap, they were calling for the extradition of up to eight people living in the UK who they claim were involved in an uprising in the oil-rich western province of Baluchistan.

Guardian : Pakistani court orders release of British terror suspect

Pakistani court orders release of British terror suspect

James Sturcke and agencies | Guardian Unlimited | November 15, 2007

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan today ordered the release of a Birmingham man wanted in Britain in connection with an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic jets.

Rashid Rauf is now likely to be deported to Britain, his lawyer, Hashmat Habib, said.

The decision immediately sparked suspicion that the Pakistani authorities were attempting to divert criticism from the political crisis sweeping the country.

The court in Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad, ordered Rauf, a British Muslim of Pakistani origin, to be released after the prosecution withdrew the case against him, Habib said.

Pakistani police arrested Rauf in August 2006 following a tip-off from British counterparts, who have described him as a key suspect in the alleged terror plot to blow up jets flying from Britain to the US.

His arrest sparked a series of raids in the UK and the swift tightening of hand baggage restrictions. Fifteen people have been charged with terrorism offences in connection with the alleged plot.

Rauf had been charged in Pakistan with possession of 29 bottles of hydrogen peroxide - a key ingredient used in the manufacture of bombs by al-Qaida in the past - and the possession of fake South African identity papers.

Rauf's family in Pakistan said the charges against him were "cooked up". One said he had bought the hydrogen peroxide to bleach his beard.

Earlier this year, the Guardian revealed that Crown Prosecution Service lawyers had flown to Islamabad to try to secure his extradition.

British authorities were engaged in secret negotiations to swap him for up to eight people living in the UK who the Pakistani authorities claimed were involved in an uprising in the western oil-rich province of Baluchistan.

Newsweek : Where the Jihad Lives Now

Where the Jihad Lives Now

Islamic militants have spread beyond their tribal bases, and have the run of an unstable, nuclear-armed nation.

By Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK | Oct 29, 2007 Issue

Benazir Bhutto was worried she would not survive the day. It was, for her, to be a moment of joyous return after eight years of exile, but also an hour of great peril. Just before she left Dubai for Pakistan on Thursday, Oct. 18, Bhutto directed that a letter be hand-delivered to Pervez Musharraf, the embattled Pakistani autocrat with whom she had negotiated a tenuous political alliance. If anything happens to me, please investigate the following individuals in your government, she wrote, according to an account given to NEWSWEEK by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister, then proceeded to name several senior security officials she considered to be enemies, Zardari said. Principal among those she identified, according to another supporter who works for her Pakistan People's Party, was Ejaz Shah, the head of Pakistan's shadowy Intelligence Bureau, which runs domestic surveillance in somewhat the way M.I.5 does in Britain. Shah, a longtime associate of Musharraf's, is believed by Bhutto supporters to have Islamist sympathies. And Bhutto had boldly challenged Pakistan's Muslim extremists, declaring before her arrival that "the terrorists are trying to take over my country, and we have to stop them."

Bhutto was certainly prescient about the threat. On Thursday, as her motorcade inched along a parade route guarded by roughly 20,000 Pakistani security forces, one or more suicide bombers set off twin explosions that killed at least 134 bystanders and police, and injured 450 others. The bombs narrowly missed Bhutto, who had ducked into her armored truck minutes before. Shaken but uninjured, she was rushed to safety. Musharraf's government quickly fingered Baitullah Mehsud, a longtime Taliban supporter and director of some of the most lethal training facilities for suicide bombers in the far-off mountains of Waziristan. Mehsud had reportedly threatened Bhutto. She and her husband, however, pointed much closer to home. "We do not buy that it was Mehsud," Zardari told NEWSWEEK. There was no immediate evidence that Shah was connected to the bombing. At a news conference the next day, though, Bhutto noted that the streetlights had mysteriously been turned off on her parade route and said: "I am not accusing the government. I am accusing people, certain individuals who abuse their positions. Who abuse their powers."

Whoever the real culprits turn out to be, the truth is that Pakistan's government has only itself to blame for the carnage in Karachi. Pakistani leaders created the Islamist monster that now operates with near impunity throughout the country. Militant Islamist groups that were originally recruited, trained and armed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) have since become Islamabad's deadliest enemies. Twice they have nearly succeeded in assassinating Musharraf, who was once among their strongest supporters. In the last six years extremists have killed more than 1,000 Pakistani troops.

Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that don't always do what they're supposed to do. (Unlike in Iraq or Afghanistan, there also aren't thousands of American troops hunting down would-be terrorists.) Then there's the country's large and growing nuclear program. "If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard," says Bruce Riedel, the former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council.

The conventional story about Pakistan has been that it is an unstable nuclear power, with distant tribal areas in terrorist hands. What is new, and more frightening, is the extent to which Taliban and Qaeda elements have now turned much of the country, including some cities, into a base that gives jihadists more room to maneuver, both in Pakistan and beyond.

In recent months, as Musharraf has grown more and more unpopular after eight years of rule, Islamists have been emboldened. The homegrown militants who have hidden Al Qaeda's leaders since the end of 2001 are no longer restricted to untamed mountain villages along the border. These Islamist fighters now operate relatively freely in cities like Karachi—a process the U.S. and Pakistani governments call "Talibanization." Hammered by suicide bombers and Iraq-style IEDs and reluctant to make war on its countrymen, Pakistan's demoralized military seems incapable of stopping the jihadists even in the cities. "Until I return to fight, I'll feel safe and relaxed here," Abdul Majadd, a Taliban commander who was badly wounded this summer during a fire fight against British troops in Afghanistan, told NEWSWEEK recently after he was evacuated to Karachi for emergency care.

Militancy is woven into the fabric of Pakistani society. At independence in 1947, the country's whisky-swilling founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, used Islam to forge a sense of national identity. Since then the various military dictators who have periodically ruled the country have found jihad to be a convenient means of distracting their citizens and furthering their foreign-policy aims. Gen. Zia ul-Haq turned Pakistan into a base for the mujahedin waging war on the Soviets in Afghanistan—and won billions in American aid in the process. In the 1990s, after the Soviet defeat, generals like Musharraf dispatched thousands of those fighters to wage a guerrilla campaign in Kashmir. Many trained across the border in Afghanistan, in the same camps that Al Qaeda had set up under the Taliban.

After 9/11 Musharraf promised Washington that he would cut off support for such groups, including the Taliban. Early on, he authorized the arrests of several top Qaeda leaders in Pakistani cities, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a top Qaeda organizer. But Musharraf's efforts have always been somewhat halfhearted, constrained by the deep sympathies that many of his countrymen have for jihadists. For decades Pakistanis were taught that the guerrillas were Muslim heroes, fighting for national honor and security. Such loyalties cannot be turned off like a tap. Several of the militants' onetime spymasters, both inside and outside the government, maintain links to their former charges. The security services will go after certain figures—particularly foreign Qaeda fighters—but ask others simply to lie low. Many officials—even many ordinary citizens—still think the jihadists should be preserved for future use as a strategic weapon, especially against India, long after America's War on Terror is over.

The safe haven provided by Pakistan has already had dire effects on U.S. and NATO efforts to fight the resurgent Taliban next door in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters now pretty much come and go as they please inside Pakistan. Their sick and injured get patched up in private hospitals there. Guns and supplies are readily available, and in the winter, when fighting traditionally dies down in Afghanistan, thousands retire to the country's thriving madrassas to study the Qur'an. Some of the brainier operatives attend courses in computer technology, video production and even English. Far from keeping a low profile, the visiting fighters attend services at local mosques, where after prayers they speak to the congregation, soliciting donations to support the war against the West. "Pakistan is like your shoulder that supports your RPG," Taliban commander Mullah Momin Ahmed told NEWSWEEK, barely a month before a U.S. airstrike killed him last September in Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province. "Without it you couldn't fight. Thank God Pakistan is not against us."

Dozens of Taliban commanders have moved their wives and children to Pakistan, where they live in the suburbs of cities like Peshawar and Islamabad. This keeps them out of the reach of Afghan authorities, who have been known to arrest relatives in order to track down guerrilla fighters. Mullah Shabir Ahmad is a member of the Taliban's 30-man ruling council, or shura. He's moved his family to a modest neighborhood of nearly identical brick and mud-brick houses in Quetta. Inside his home he shows a visiting NEWSWEEK reporter a room filled with new bolts of cloth, Ramadan gifts from the city's Taliban sympathizers. He spends roughly half the year inside Pakistan, shuttling between Quetta, Karachi, Peshawar and the tribal belt to raise funds, recruit new fighters and plot strategy with other commanders.

The insurgents have no centralized supply system. Instead, each senior provincial commander operates his own network. Din Mohammad, a tall, portly man in his mid-30s, looks after the needs of insurgents who fight for commander Gul Agha in southern Helmand province. With cash from Afghanistan and from his own fund-raising efforts he buys shoes and warm clothes for Taliban fighters, walkie-talkies and satellite phones—even weapons, explosives and remote-control devices. The benign stuff he trucks into Afghanistan openly. The lethal items are hidden in shipments of clothes and food or under the baggage of Afghan refugees on their way home. Some Taliban chiefs prefer to shop for themselves. Earlier this month Mullah Rehmat, a Taliban commander, rested at a youth hostel in Peshawar while he waited for the master gunsmiths of Dera Adam Khel village to finish a $750 sniper rifle he'd ordered.

The contrast to 2002 is striking. Back then, in the first flush of Musharraf's crackdown on extremists, a NEWSWEEK reporter met Agha Jan, a former senior Taliban Defense Ministry official, in an orchard outside the city of Quetta. A nervous Jan recounted how he had to change homes every two nights for fear of capture, and he fled when some local villagers approached. Jan now has a house outside Quetta, where he lives when he's not fighting with Taliban forces across the border in his native Zabul province. Reporters in Peshawar, a strategic Pakistani border city some 50 miles east of the historic Khyber Pass and the Afghan border, say it's not unusual these days to receive phone calls from visiting Taliban commanders offering interviews, or asking where to find a cheap hotel, a good restaurant or a new cell phone.

Last August, a NEWSWEEK reporter received a phone call from the spokesman for a senior Taliban leader, inviting him for dinner at a popular restaurant in Peshawar. The reporter replied that he was already there. As he looked around, he saw the smiling jihadist sitting a few tables away. They shared a kilo of Afghan barbecue as the spokesman confidently talked about the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan and how comfortable they felt operating inside Pakistani cities and in the frontier tribal area. "The biggest chink in Musharraf's armor is his failure to move against the Taliban, particularly in the cities," says Samina Ahmed, the South Asia director of the International Crisis Group in Islamabad. "The brains, the ones who plan the operations, are not necessarily in the boonies or in the sticks, they're in cities like Quetta. Can he pick them up? Easily."

Taliban fighters say they are careful not to antagonize their hosts; the attacks against Pakistani troops have generally been conducted by Pakistani tribals, sometimes with the support of Qaeda operatives. But that's a fine distinction. "If you take away that support the Taliban are getting from across the border in Pakistan, it would be much easier for U.S., NATO and Afghan government forces to confront the Taliban inside Afghanistan," says Ahmed. Each group may have its own agenda, but they all share a visceral hatred of America and its regional allies—including Musharraf. The Taliban also work closely with Qaeda leaders in the tribal regions, planning attacks together and pooling their skills.

The Taliban presence began to grow out of control after Musharraf, his Army bloodied by incursions into South Wa-ziristan, cut a peace deal with the tribal region's Mehsud clan in 2005. He made another such truce with tribal militants in North Waziristan in 2006. The ceasefire agreements were publicly announced as treaties with tribal elders. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The deals were made directly with the militant leaders, their frontmen or terrified tribal elders who did the militants' bidding. As a result they were worthless: the militants had no intention of keeping their promise to stop the passage of arms and fighters across the Afghan border. While the Army halted offensive operations and dismantled checkpoints, the militants helped the Taliban and Al Qaeda regroup and reinfiltrate back into Afghanistan.

Those forces, all working together, have brought the Afghan jihad home to Pakistan. Within the tribes' ancient mud-walled fortresses they run training courses for insurgent recruits and suicide bombers. Some graduates travel to Afghanistan to fight beside the Taliban. Others will stay in the tribal area to fight the Pakistani Army, while others are sent out to hit targets in places like Karachi. Several terrorist plots in Britain have been traced back to the tribal areas.

Now the Pakistani government is bearing the brunt of the attacks. The threat turned critical in July, when more than 100 militants died in a weeklong shoot-out with government forces at Islamabad's Red Mosque. In retaliation, tribal suicide bombers have managed to penetrate highly guarded military facilities in the capital, the Army headquarters at Rawalpindi and elsewhere, killing scores. Authorities say that until the showdown, the Red Mosque had served as a way station and munitions depot for hundreds of fighters shuttling between Pakistan's cities and the tribal areas. It reopened Oct. 3, and preachers there are once again denouncing Musharraf and his partnership with the West. A similar message was delivered to Bhutto before she came home. Last week, speaking by satellite phone from the South Waziristan tribal area, a senior militant commander named Haji Muhamad Omar called Bhutto an agent of Washington. "She doesn't come back by her own choice. The United States and Britain are bringing her back to fight against the mujahedin," he said.

The militants dominate in areas beyond the tribal areas as well. Armed groups have effectively seized control in places like the picturesque Swat Valley, where a jihadi leader named Mullah Fazlullah rides a black horse and commands hundreds of men under the noses of a nearby Pakistani Army division that seldom leaves its barracks. Peshawar is perhaps the most important production and distribution center for Taliban and other Islamist material. Jihadi CD and DVD shops abound. One small shop features large posters of the notorious Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah Akhund, who was killed in Helmand earlier this year, and pictures of Guant?namo inmates in their orange jumpsuits behind barbed wire.

The Afghan refugee camps around Peshawar, meanwhile, have become vast jihadist sanctuaries. The Jalozai and Shamshatu camps, each housing some 100,000 Afghan refugees, date back to the war against the Soviets. Complaints from the Afghan government have forced Islamabad and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to begin the long process of emptying Jalozai, a job that's supposed to be completed by next spring. Many of the camp's high-walled compounds are already abandoned. But few Jalozai residents are returning to Afghanistan when they leave the camps. Most are settling in Peshawar or other towns in the vicinity, which will allow the Taliban more space to operate in. A local mullah was arrested in Jalozai earlier this year after three Pakistani militants blew themselves up while using his house as a bomb factory.

The Shamshatu camp, just south of Peshawar, is the personal fiefdom of the notorious Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. His guerrillas, the Hizb-i-Islami ("Party of Islam"), operate mainly in Afghanistan's Kunar province, but Shamshatu is their power base, in effect an autonomous enclave within Pakistan. Like Jalozai, the place resembles a sprawling, labyrinthine Afghan village of mud-brick houses surrounded by high mud walls, and it's ruled by strict, Taliban-style Islamic law. Music is forbidden—even musical ringtones on cell phones. So is tobacco. Women are banned from venturing outside except in the company of a male relative. (There are girls' schools, though: unlike his Taliban allies, Hekmatyar believes in women's education.)

Shamshatu contains high-security areas that are out of bounds even to camp residents. Camp residents say Hekmatyar's men run private jails in these off-limits areas. Recently a woman who lived in the camp dared to go shopping alone. When she entered a small electronics shop, gunmen followed her. They forced the shopkeeper to close his store, detained the woman and telephoned her husband. "If you won't kill her, we will," they told him, before handing her over with a warning that if they caught her again without an escort, they would kill her. Then they confiscated the shopkeeper's goods and threw him out of the camp.

Musharraf says his forces are doing everything possible to halt the jihadists' spread. Pakistan's president has shown he can deliver when he must. Late last February, just as Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Islamabad to pressure Musharraf to fight harder against the Islamists, Pakistani military-intelligence agents in Quetta suddenly captured Mullah Obaidullah Akhund. As the Taliban's Defense minister and one of Mullah Omar's key deputies, he was the highest-ranking Taliban official the Pakistanis had ever taken into custody. A couple of months earlier, Pakistan reportedly informed U.S. forces in Afghanistan that another senior Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, was heading into Afghanistan from Quetta. A U.S. airstrike promptly killed him, just inside Afghanistan. But those cases remain exceptional.

U.S. government officials say that Musharraf's government still has tight control over the nation's nuclear-weapons program. Still, radicals would not need to steal a whole bomb in order to create havoc. Pakistan has never made a public accounting of its nuclear materials, and last year its Atomic Energy Agency began publishing ads in newspapers instructing the public about how to recognize radioactive materials and their symbols. The ads were quickly withdrawn after they incited fears that fissile material had gone missing. But Pervez Hoodbhoy, a noted nuclear physicist at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, says outside experts don't really know how much highly enriched uranium Pakistan has produced in the past and how much remains in existing stocks. "No one has a real idea about that," he says. "That means that stuff could have gotten out. Little bits here or there. But we really don't know."

In Washington, a senior administration official involved in counterterrorism said U.S. intelligence is chronically fearful that Islamists might get hold of nuclear material, equipment or know-how in Pakistan. He recalled that after 9/11, a group of rogue Pakistani nuclear scientists met with Osama bin Laden. "Given that history, we continue to look at this issue very closely," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

It's not surprising that Pakistani authorities might give the Taliban special treatment. The country's intelligence officers and military men have maintained close personal relations with senior Taliban leaders ever since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Western military and diplomatic officials say they doubt that Pakistan is still actively assisting Afghan insurgents—but they don't think it's trying very hard to stop them, either. "I'm not delusional," says a Western military official in Islamabad, not wishing to be quoted by name on such a sensitive topic. "Their [the Pakistani government's] guys are in contact with the Talibs. They may not be assisting them, but they aren't busting them, either." A Western diplomat, speaking off the record because he is not authorized to represent his government's views to the media, says, "I'm sure there are intelligence officials, active and retired, who have dealt with the Taliban in the past and still support their cause. That's the power of personal relationships over time. You don't cut those off abruptly."

The Taliban war effort is also greatly aided by dozens of "retired" former officials in Mullah Omar's defunct Taliban government who now reside in Pakistan, some armed with Pakistani national identity cards. The Taliban don't think they're putting anything past the ISI—"the black snake," as they call the agency. Mullah Shabir Ahmad, a provincial commander, spends upwards of six months of the year inside Pakistan. "The Pakistanis know what we eat for lunch and dinner," he says. Mullah Momin Ahmed, visiting his family in Quetta shortly before his death in September, agreed: "Pakistan knows everything about us, but it seems to ignore us." Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the military's chief spokesman, says that Pakistani forces have arrested and deported 1,500 Taliban to Afghanistan, "but many somehow return."

Until now, most Pakistanis seem to have remained impervious to the jihadist threat, despite the evidence around them. Musharraf himself has seemed preoccupied with other matters. "He has failed to understand the danger of insurgency on both sides of the border, and how to bring the Pakistani people along with him to counter that threat," says retired Pakistani Army Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. "He has been too obsessed with perpetuating his power." Instead, according to Masood and other observers, the president has allowed Pakistanis to lull themselves into thinking that the battle against the jihadists is Musharraf's and America's problem, not theirs. "The greatest danger is that the whole Pakistani nation, including senior politicians, seems to be saying that this is not our watch, this is not our war," says Masood. "Even the Taliban presence in the cities seems to have an acceptance."

Few Pakistanis have any desire to live under the militants' rule. The trouble is, the country's moderate alternatives have become almost as unpopular. Musharraf won a third term as president by a unanimous Electoral Assembly vote on Oct. 6 (heavily boycotted by the opposition). In a recent nationwide poll by the International Republican Institute, however, he earned a dismal 21 percent approval rating. Bhutto fared little better, scoring a pitiful 28 percent. Many Pakistanis were appalled by her willingness to cut a deal with Musharraf so that he would allow her to return from exile.

True, the survey was taken before last week's attack. In the wake of the deadliest terrorist bombing in Pakistan's history, the public might rally once again to her support. "She won't be deterred," her husband told NEWSWEEK, describing Bhutto as "composed" in a phone call after the attack. "She won't be taken hostage by a small minority of people." But that minority of Islamists isn't so small any longer—and it's ready for a long war.

With Mark Hosenball in Washington, Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and staff reports

© Newsweek, Inc.

Reuters : Pakistan's Bhutto detained ahead of mass protest

Pakistan's Bhutto detained ahead of mass protest

By Kamran Haider and Sophie Walker | November 12, 2007

LAHORE/LONDON (Reuters) - Pakistani police put opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for a week on Tuesday as the Commonwealth threatened suspension unless President Pervez Musharraf repealed a state of emergency.

Army chief Musharraf set off a storm of criticism when he imposed emergency rule on November 3. He suspended the constitution, sacked most judges, locked up lawyers, rounded up thousands of opposition and rights activists and curbed the media.

The Commonwealth, a 53-member body consisting mainly of former British colonies, gave Musharraf until November 22 to end emergency rule and take other steps to address his country's problems, or Pakistan would face suspension.

The crisis in nuclear-armed Pakistan has raised fears about its stability and its focus on battling Islamist militants.

Two-time prime minister Bhutto planned to lead a "long march" motorcade the 270 km (170 miles) from Lahore to the capital Islamabad to demand Musharraf quit as army chief, end emergency rule, reinstate the constitution and free detained activists -- including many from her party.

On Monday, she urged Pakistanis of all shades to join the procession to set off early on Tuesday and vowed it would go ahead even if police tried to block her.

But as hundreds of extra police moved in around the Lahore home of a party official where she was staying, setting up barricades on streets, a senior government official said her procession would not be allowed.

Lahore Police Chief Aftab Cheema later told Reuters outside the house that Bhutto had been served with the week-long detention notice.

But a party spokeswoman vowed the protest would go ahead.

"Our plan is on. Definitely she'll try to come out. We will start our procession from here and if they try to stop us, the whole of Punjab will be a battleground," said the spokeswoman, Fazana Raja.

Police have said Bhutto could be the target of a suicide assassination bid, like the one that killed 139 people at a rally last month welcoming her back from eight years in self-exile.

Last week, police blocked her from leaving her Islamabad home to hold a rally in the nearby city of Rawalpindi.

PRESSURE BUILDS

Musharraf has come under mounting pressure from Western allies to set Pakistan back on the path to democracy.

He said on Sunday general elections would be held by January 9 but he declined to say when the constitution would be restored. The emergency would ensure a free and fair vote, he said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged the government to lift the emergency, while U.S. President George W. Bush also called for it to end.

"The president thinks (they) need to lift the emergency rule in order to have free and fair elections," White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters.

The Commonwealth made the threat to suspend Pakistan at a meeting in London. While suspension would be largely symbolic, it could have implications for development assistance.

Pakistan was suspended in 1999 following the military coup that brought Musharraf to power but readmitted in 2004 after progress on democratic reforms.

"If after a review of progress Pakistan has failed to implement these necessary measures, it will suspend Pakistan from the councils of the Commonwealth," Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon told reporters in London.

Among the measures demanded were the immediate repeal of emergency laws, the restoration of the constitution, the release of detainees, for Musharraf to step down as army chief and immediate progress on holding fair elections.

Musharraf justified the emergency by saying a meddling judiciary was hampering the battle against militants.

Diplomats say his main objective was to stop the Supreme Court from ruling invalid his October 6 re-election by legislative assemblies dominated by his supporters.

Musharraf has said he would step down as army chief and be sworn in as a civilian president as soon as the Supreme Court, where new judges seen as friendly to the government have been appointed, ruled on challenges to his election.

The International Crisis Group think-tank and the opposition said proper elections would be impossible under an emergency.

A Western diplomat said Musharraf knew that too.

"I don't think Musharraf is actually naive enough to hold elections under the emergency. They wouldn't be credible," he said, adding he expected Musharraf to step down from the army and take his oath of office as a civilian president this week.

(Additional reporting by Simon Garnder in Lahore; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Charles Dick)

© Reuters 2007 All rights reserved