A powerful bomb ripped through a crowd of opposition supporters in central Islamabad on Tuesday night, killing at least 13 people and ratcheting up the stakes in Pakistan’s snowballing crises.
The explosion occurred outside a tent where the suspended chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who is fighting a high-profile battle with President Pervez Musharraf, was due to speak.
The crowd had been shouting ”Go, Musharraf, go!” said Afzal Mehmood, a university student who had passed the scene moments earlier. ”There was hope in their faces. Now there is only the smell of their blood.”
The city police chief blamed a suicide bomber but witnesses thought the bomb was a timed device. Many of the victims were said to be activists of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party (PPP), which has supported the chief justice.
The attack came at a sensitive juncture in a turbulent year for Pakistan. Islamabad residents are reeling from the eight-day Red Mosque siege that left more than 100 people dead when it came to a bloody climax last week.
Later this week the supreme court is expected to rule on Chaudhry’s court challenge against Musharraf and his attempts to sack the chief justice. Success for Chaudhry would deal a disastrous blow to the military leader’s plans for re-election later this year.
Black-suited lawyers, who have headed a pro-democracy movement in Pakistan, milled angrily around the scene of the blast, many wearing stickers that read: ”We want rule of law.”
Accusations about the identity of the bombers flew thick and fast — the most common involving the military intelligence agencies.
”The agencies strike again. There is no question of it,” said Munir Malik, a senior member of the chief justice’s legal team. ”If the CJ is reinstated, he will hold them to task.”
As police combed the scene for clues, the lawyers returned to the podium for speeches. The variety of conspiracy theories was a testament to the uncertainty gripping Pakistan. Many denounced Musharraf, others said they believed the target was Bhutto’s secular PPP.
But General Hamid Gul — a former intelligence chief who spoke in support of the lawyers — blamed India or the US. ”Someone is interested in starting a civil war in Pakistan and then snatch our nuclear capability from us by saying we are unstable,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â