The reality is that these are the people we are fighting not only on the battlefield in Afghanistan and Iraq but also throughout the rest of the world where like minded individuals plot similar atrocities, supported financially and morally by a large number of Muslims who believe one of the basic tenets of Islam - expansion.
A suspected suicide bomber killed more than 89 people on Friday in an attack targeting a vehicle carrying former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto through Karachi on her return from eight years in exile.So there you have it. She supports the US efforts to fight Islamic evil and, right on cue, Islamic evil tries to kill her.
Bhutto was safe and at her home after leaving the truck that had been transporting her through streets crowded with hundreds of thousands of wellwishers, officials said.
"Ms Bhutto is safe and she has been taken to her residence," said Azhar Farooqui, a senior police officer in Karachi.
Militants linked to al-Qaeda, angered by Bhutto's support for the United States war on terrorism, had earlier this week threatened to assassinate her.
Dr Ejaz Ahmed, a police surgeon, told Reuters that 56 dead had been brought to three hospitals of the city. A Reuters reporter counted 33 bodies in another hospital.
An interior ministry spokesman said 100 people were wounded.
Rescuers scrambled to drag bodies from the twisted wreckage of blazing vehicles as flames lit up the night sky after two apparent explosions in Pakistan's most violent city.
"The blasts hit two police vehicles which were escorting the truck carrying Ms Bhutto. The target was the truck," Farooqui told Reuters.
Rehman Malik, an aide to Bhutto who was travelling with her on the truck, said the blasts went off while she was resting inside the vehicle.
President Pervez Musharraf, in a statement issued by the state run news agency, said the attack represented "a conspiracy against democracy".
In Washington, the White House condemned the attack, believed to have been one of the most deadly blasts in Pakistan's violent history.
"The United States condemns the violent attack in Pakistan and mourns the loss of innocent life there," Gordon Johndroe, White House National Security Council spokesman said.
"Extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process."
Intelligence reports suggested at least three jihadi groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban were plotting suicide attacks, according to a provincial official.
Some 20,000 security personnel had been deployed to provide protection for the returning Bhutto.
"She has an agreement with America. We will carry out attacks on Benazir Bhutto as we did on General Pervez Musharraf," Haji Omar, a Taliban commander in the Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border, told Reuters by satellite telephone as Bhutto headed for Pakistan.
Bhutto had returned from self-imposed exile to lead her Pakistan People's Party into national elections meant to return the country to civilian rule.
For years Bhutto had vowed to return to Pakistan to end military dictatorship, yet she came back as a potential ally for Musharraf, the army chief who took power in a 1999 coup.
The United States is believed to have quietly encouraged their alliance to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan pro-Western and committed to fighting al Qaeda and supporting NATO's efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.
Dressed in a green kameez, a loose tunic, her head covered by a white scarf, Bhutto had earlier stood in plain view on top of her truck, ignoring police advice to stay behind its bullet proof glass, as it edged through crowds waving the red, black and green tricolour of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
Even before Friday's attack, Bhutto's family history has been steeped in violence.
Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected prime minister, was overthrown and hanged, while her two brothers were killed in mysterious circumstances, one gunned down in Karachi, the other found dead in a French Riviera hotel.
3 comments:
If you bothered to learn anything about Benazir Bhutto you would find that she (a Muslim) denounces these acts of terrorism for what they are, a perversion to Islam. For all your bluster about "evil Islam" only wanting expansion, you conveniently forget to mention the hundreds of thousands of people who died at the hands of the Christian crusaders and conquistadors, or the tens of thousands of Native Americans who perished in the pursuit of America's "God-given" right to "Manifest Destinty". As an United States citizen myself (and someone who has met and talked to Prime Minister Bhutto) I can both see her return to Pakistan for the encouraging development that it is while at the same time not resorting to baseless attacks against one of the most important and fastest growing religions in the world. If only you could do the same.
Matt,
Search my blog for a reality check on the so-called Religion Of Peace.
In summary, it is fundamentally a political doctrine wrapped up in religious ideology.
The examples of Crusaders, Conquistadors and Native Americans pale into insignificance at the brutality done in the name of Allah and that's not to mention that the Crusades were a completely defensive series of operations (and quite unsuccessful, too).
Benazir bhutto & husband zardari are wanted in several cases of curruption, money landering,murder, and attempt to kidnap for ransom in Pakistan, Switzerland & Spain. They should be tried by an international tribunal & asked to prove how they became billionaires. It is surpising that not a single PPP leader was killed. They all ran to benazir's fortess home in upscale Clifton. A leading newspaper Dawn has stated that the party spent 30 million on benazir's return people were brought from all over the country in buses and had to live in the buses to two days without any toilets or food. She has plenty of money to cause anarchy in Pakistan and lobby the US.
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