Bhutto's return is seen by some as a US and British stage-managed provocation, writes Mary Fitzgerald
Mary FitzgeraldForeign Affairs Correspondent
Benazir Bhutto knew she was taking a risk. Not only was her power-sharing deal a gamble on her party's fortunes, her decision to return after an eight-year self-imposed exile presented dangers of a more personal kind.
The former prime minister admitted as much in an interview with The Irish Times in July but was fatalistic when asked about the possibility she could be targeted after setting foot on Pakistani soil. "I know that dangers lurk there but I don't dwell on issues of safetyand security because there is no point," she told this reporter. "You should dwell on the things you can do and what I can do is try to take good security measures."
Perhaps it was faith in her personal security that led Bhutto to ignore official warnings about the security risks involved in parading a slow-moving convoy through the teeming streets of Karachi to mark her homecoming. More likely it was the need to stage a triumphal rally to show political rivals and her supporters nervously watching from Washington and London that she still commands mass support. Whatever her reasons, Bhutto took a calculated risk that resulted in the deaths of more than 130 people, killed in the worst suicide bombing attack in Pakistan's history.
"It was a security nightmare that turned into a horror," says retired Pakistani major Ikram Sehgal, now a security analyst, "Do you think the president of the US would move through the streets of Washington in a slow procession for hours? It was asking for trouble."
No one has yet claimed responsibility but the rumours and innuendo in Pakistan throw up a familiar cast of characters. While her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, immediately pointed a finger at the government and suggested Pakistan's intelligence apparatus was behind the blasts, Bhutto herself was more cautious. Intially blaming supporters of Zia ul-Haq, the late military ruler who overthrew and then executed her father three decades ago, Bhutto later accused "certain individuals who abuse their positions and powers," claiming they had helped militants orchestrate the attacks. She called for an inquiry into why Karachi's street lighting failed during her evening procession through the city.
The former prime minister has no shortage of enemies. Apart from her political foes, Bhutto has long been loathed by those who inhabit the murky nexus between jihadi groups and Pakistan's intelligence services, ties that have existed since the campaign to expel Soviet forces from Afghanistan in the 1980s. Her return was, in some quarters, seen as choreographed by the US and Britain, and therefore a provocation.
In recent months, she had stepped up her rhetoric against extremists. She proclaimed her support for the army's storming of the militant Red Mosque in Islamabad, an event that triggered several suicide bombing attacks in retaliation. She pledged to hand over AQ Khan, revered father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, to the International Atomic Energy Agency for interrogation, and said she would co-operate with the US to combat terrorism.
"Bhutto riled the extremists by promising all these things that were designed to prove her credentials to western audiences more than anything else," says Ikram Sehgal. Before her arrival, Bhutto had shrugged off threats from several groups, including militants linked to al-Qaeda and pro-Taliban factions based in the volatile tribal belt that borders Afghanistan.
Beyond the immediate issue of who was responsible, the attack raises a multitude of questions in terms of its effects on Pakistan's tumultuous politics. Already, there are worries the bombing could provide Musharraf and the ruling party with a pretext to delay elections which Bhutto and her supporters had expected to bring her back to power.
The hope surrounding Bhutto's return was that she could galvanize its silent majority and help isolate extremists which, despite their rhetoric, remain a marginal phenomenon in Pakistan's political landscape. Whether the coming months allow her that chance remains to be seen.