Peril in Pakistan

An exiled female head of state returns to her home country, an Islamic state. Ten hours later, explosions rack her return procession in Karachi, with 134 dead and 150 to 300 injured, according to various sources.

Bombs marked Benazir Bhutto's homecoming. The Musharraf regime blames the bombings on Islamic militants. However, you've got to think about who benefits from the act. Plans for power-sharing between Musharraf and Bhutto were in the works. With this sort of unrest, Musharraf has stated that he may impose marshal law.

The first explosion was the work of a grenade. People rushed to the scene. A suicide bomber struck, killing many more. Bhutto escaped unscathed, but Bhutto thinks she has the beat on who is trying to kill her.

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

She suspects officials "who had belonged to the government of the former president, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, who seized power in 1977 when he arrested and hanged Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ms. Bhutto’s father," the Times reports.

Long before her return to Pakistan, Taliban leaders had made threats on her life. They thought she may cooperate with the U.S. in the pursuit of the War on Terror, the Guardian reports.

Militants were responsible for the attack, Bhutto said at a press conference today, and they must have had some sort of accomplice.

“(They) cannot act on their own,” she said in the interview. “They need logistics, food, weapons and someone to supervise them.”

“We believe democracy alone can save Pakistan from disintegration and a militant takeover,” she said in a press conference. “We are prepared to risk our lives and we are prepared to risk our liberty, but we are not prepared to surrender our great nation to the militants.”

Pakistan is in an interesting geopolitical situation. Afghanistan rests precipitously upon the postcolonial state. The borders don't quite match the ethnic groups. Afghani sectarian conflict often spills over to the Pakistan border.