Female suicide squad threatens to attack Benazir Bhutto
Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto has received a threat that she would be targeted by female suicide bombers, one of her close aides said yesterday.
Farooq Naik, a senior lawyer and member of the Senate or upper house of parliament, said the chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party had received a letter that contained the threat.
The letter was purportedly written by the leader of the suicide squad, Naik told Dawn News channel.
Naik indicated that the bombers might be linked to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.
The development came five days after a suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto's homecoming rally in the southern port city of Karachi that claimed nearly 140 lives and injured hundreds more.
Benazir Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan on October 18 after eight years in self-exile, had earlier alleged that three senior government officials were behind attempts to assassinate her. She has also claimed that Jihadi elements in the establishment who were close to late military dictator Gen Zia-ul-Haq were targeting her.
The government has dismissed her allegations and Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao has said that he believes extremists from Pakistan's restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan were behind the attack on Benazir Bhutto's motorcade.
Meanwhile, Benazir Bhutto said Tuesday she is considering "virtual" mass rallies and campaigning via phone to avoid mass violence after last week's deadly suicide attack on her convoy.
Benazir Bhutto wrote her suggestions in a Wall Street journal opinion piece, a day after she condemned the government's plan to ban large rallies in the run-up to January's general elections, seen as a key step to restoring democracy after eight years of military rule by President Pervez Musharraf.
"Intimidation by murdering cowards will not be allowed to derail Pakistan's transition to democracy," wrote Benazir Bhutto, whose return Thursday after eight years of self-imposed exile was rocked by two blasts that ripped through her homecoming parade, killing 139 people.
"We are now focusing on hybrid techniques that combine individual and mass voter contact with sharp security constraints," she said.
"Where people have telephones, we can experiment with taped voice messages from me describing my issue positions and urging them to vote. In rural areas we are contemplating taped messages from me played regularly on boom boxes set up in village centres.
Heavy security preparations were underway at the family mausoleum of Benazir Bhutto Tuesday as villagers awaited a visit from the former Pakistani premier, officials said.
Benazir Bhutto's travel plans have been under wraps since a suicide bombing ripped through a massive crowd welcoming her home from eight years in exile and killed 139 people last Thursday in Karachi.
Her party said there were threats to target Benazir Bhutto again whenever she visits Larkana, her ancestral district in southern Sindh province, where her father, the late prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, is buried.
"There are some threats that she received from many elements that she can be targeted another time in Larkana or Karachi," Pakistan People's Party deputy district information secretary Mashooque Ali Jatoi told AFP.
He would not say when Benazir Bhutto would travel from Karachi to the area, citing security reasons.
"Besides the government's measures, the party workers will also be present to protect and give security to Mohtarma (honorific) Bhutto," he said inside the giant Taj Mahal-style mausoleum in the village of Ghari Khudar Baksh.
Benazir Bhutto has been surrounded by heavily armed security guards on each of her rare public outings since the deadly blasts, amid her claims that the security forces and government have been infiltrated by Islamic militants.
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