I was going to say something but the ...
She was on her way to Jinnah's tomb. Happened around 12:15 local, over 125 dead, over 540 injured. Went off near a few police vans and PPP security cars. Benazir Bhutto was riding in a fortified, bullet-proof truck. That may have saved her life.
The twin blasts were staggered by less than a minute. GeoTV is reporting that it seemed like the combination of a suicide bomber and a car bomb. Reuters has documentation of the carnage and destruction.
There were more than a few direct threats against her.
The city has shut down. Police and Rangers have closed down major ports.
The GeoTV anchor just called it Qiyamat-i Sughra - the Lesser Apocalypse.
Karachi Metblog has reports from the city.
COMMENTS
lapata | October 18, 2007
She sure knows how to make an entrance.
akbar | October 18, 2007
Here are BB'S own thoughts about suicide attempts on Pakistani elites. Benazir Bhutto Monday August 9, 2004 The Guardian " Pakistan is a frontline state in the war against terrorism. Most of the leading terrorists have been arrested in Pakistan......,. The positive part is that General Pervez Musharraf gets to play good cop and earn Washington's pleasure to continue his dictatorship. The bad part is that eyebrows are raised as to why leading al-Qaida militants found it necessary to hide in a land run by Washington's "key ally" in the war against terror. Unfortunately for Pakistan, assassinations and suicide bombings have also been increasing domestically.......,. None of the assassins has been arrested. Instead, public attention has been focused on five apparent assassination attempts against high-profile targets that have taken place since last December: two attacks on Gen Musharraf, and one each on the Karachi corps commander, the prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz, and the Baluchistan chief minister. While the regime insists these were genuine assassination attempts, their pattern suggests something different. At most, they seem to have been attempts to frighten the targets. At worst, if the cynics are to be believed, the attacks were stage-managed for external consumption. For example, in each case, the bombers used low intensity explosives. None of the people hurt or killed was of political value - though they were, of course, of personal and national value. These included innocent people escorting the apparent targets. The main targets escaped without a scratch. While it is welcome that they survived, the larger issue needs resolving. The drivers in the corps commander's and prime minister-designate's cars were killed, but the other passengers escaped unscathed. It is difficult to believe that bombers would repeatedly use low-intensity explosives so that only one occupant of the car being attacked - or a person outside the car - would die. A public commission into these attacks is needed." · Benazir Bhutto is chairperson of the Pakistan People's party and a former prime minister of Pakistan
Liveblogging From Karachi « Lakshmi Gandhi’s Blog | October 18, 2007
[...] 19th, 2007 at 2:02 am (Uncategorized) Via Chapati Mystery: Metroblogging Karachi has been covering the blasts in their city live from the [...]
MadSufi | October 19, 2007
This could have been averted. Bhutto should have landed in Punjab and refused such a homecoming parade. She knew extremists were plotting to kill her.
This week in the news… « Muslim Recovery | October 19, 2007
[...] sense of protection, under His wings (Sufi News) The Return of the Native (Chapati Mystery) A plea for mitigation (Erwin James, The Guardian) Martin Amis — neither a [...]
itz | October 21, 2007
i'm sure bhutto couldn't be happier. the lives of a couple hundred people in exchange for the political capital received from a threat on her life - her mind made that trade in a second.