October 20, 2007	Saturday	Shawwal 7, 1428

LONDON, Oct 19: The British media covered extensively both Benazir Bhutto’s triumphant return home and the bloodbath that followed a midnight suicide bomb attack on her procession.

The Guardian in a report said Thursday night’s attack, one of the deadliest in the country’s history, is likely to deepen the ongoing political crisis against the backdrop of a surge in Islamist violence.

The report further said the attack will be seen as a wider assault on the political system in Pakistan. Now the violence may endanger her (Ms Bhutto’s) power-sharing talks with Gen Musharraf, who has threatened to impose emergency rule or martial law if his plans to retain power are frustrated.

Before returning to Pakistan, Ms Bhutto told the Guardian she feared that retired military officials from the country’s powerful military establishment were plotting her assassination. Taliban commanders were “just pawns,” she said. “It is those forces behind [them] that have presided over the rise of extremism and militancy in my country.”

“Call it a personality cult, feudal politics or genuine democracy, but overwhelming street power is the potent calling card of Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party. It also proved to be a point of vulnerability. A sea of supporters washed up against the fortified bus carrying Ms Bhutto as it crawled through Karachi,” the newspaper commented.

The Times quoting an interview of her with a French magazine said Ms Bhutto rejected a suggestion that she might be held responsible for the attacks, given warnings from the government of General Musharraf.

She later called for the head of the Intelligence Bureau, the civilian intelligence agency, to be dismissed.

The same newspaper in its editorial (The Iron Lady) said the crowds that turned out to cheer Benazir Bhutto on her return to Pakistan yesterday at a minimum demonstrated the continued power of her name and the organisational strength of her party even though its leader has spent most of the past eight years in London and Dubai. The explosions directed at her and her entourage, killing dozens of people, indicate the continuing danger that she will face now that she is at home.

Anticipating a power-sharing arrangement between Ms Bhutto and Gen Musharraf after general election, the editorial advised the former not to interfere unnecessarily with foreign policy which in its opinion the latter has handled very well and “she, on the other hand, has a political legitimacy that he (Musharraf) has never secured and, if she takes the correct path, could direct social and economic reform. At best, the combination of these two figures can transform Pakistan. At worst, it could end with irreconcilable conflict (or the assassination of president, prime minister, or both) which fanatics would exploit with catastrophic consequences for the region.”

The Daily Telegraph said with elections scheduled to take place at the beginning of next year the bombs exposed the vulnerable nature of Pakistan’s stuttering attempts to restore democracy. The attack deepened the fissures dividing Pakistan and its role in the war on terror.

In an analytical piece, the newspaper said: The bloody carnage in Karachi has once again plunged Pakistan into a political crisis, raised serious doubts as to whether parliamentary elections can be held in January and deepened the longstanding mistrust between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

“The claims and counter-claims will continue but the bombing may give Gen Musharraf and the ruling PML the excuse to postpone general elections that could bring Ms Bhutto to power.

“Under such circumstances the elections can only be a half-hearted affair and the potential for the military to rig the elections as it did in 2002 will be significant.

“Ms Bhutto clearly took a calculated risk that cost the lives of 140 people, but she had also put her own life on the line.

“Her party faithful have backed her on the need to politically isolate the Islamic fundamentalist parties, deal harshly with Islamic extremism, make up with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and settle another insurgency that is taking place in Balochistan.

“Gen Musharraf has refused to seek a national reconciliation between the army, the PML and the myriad opposition parties.

“Instead he has successfully divided the opposition, played hard and soft with the extremists and still wants to keep Islamic fundamentalist parties on board with him in any future electoral alliance.

“It was hoped that Ms Bhutto’s safe arrival, her show of strength and her subsequent dialogue with the military would increase pressure on Gen Musharraf to do the right thing.”

The same newspaper in its leader said: One has to take one’s hat off to Benazir Bhutto, primarily for her pluck in re-entering the lion’s den of Pakistani politics, but also, after eight years in exile, for maintaining her hold over the imaginations of millions of her fellow-countrymen.

“Her return to Karachi, the capital of her Sindhi heartland, yesterday was marred by a murderous bomb attack, but served notice on General Pervez Musharraf that she remains a formidable political force.”

The Independent report said Ms Bhutto’s triumphant homecoming to Pakistan turned to deadly carnage…and cast an appalling shadow over what had seemed only hours earlier like a mass celebration for a much-loved figure. More than 150,000 jubilant supporters surrounded the convoy carrying the former leader, shouting “long-live Bhutto”.