Musharraf escapes kill bid, 14 killed
Thursday 25 December 2003, 17:24 Makka Time, 14:24 GMT
The attack is the second attempt on Musharraf's life this month
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has narrowly survived a second assassination bid
this month. Suicide car bombers attacked his motorcade on Thursday, killing at least
12 besides themselves.
Officials said the two cars used in the attack were driven out of two petrol stations
just 200 metres from a bridge on a main road in the city of Rawalpindi where Musharraf
escaped a bombing on 14 December.
The powerful blasts scattered debris and body parts over a wide area and damaged the
windscreen of the president's armoured Mercedes, but he was unhurt, they said.
"The President and all his companions are safe and sound," said Major-General Shaukat
Sultan. An aide said Musharraf, who had been heading home, was "in good spirits".
Public appearance
However, Musharraf who came on television immediately after the 14 December attempt
had not yet appeared in public more than six hours after the second attempt.
"It was an assassination attempt," said Information Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed.
"Two suicide attackers in two cars tried to hit the president's vehicle. God has saved
him. Three cars of the cavalcade, including the president's car, were damaged."
Musharraf escaped the previous
kill attempt on the same road
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Rauf Chaudary said at least 14 people had been
killed, including at least two bombers, and 18 people were wounded.
A soldier and three policeman were among the dead. Some police officers in the
motorcade were hurt and a diversionary open-topped Mercedes at the tail end of the
motorcade was blown across the road by the blasts.
Soldiers and police cordoned off the area on the road connecting Rawalpindi with the
capital Islamabad. The route is used almost daily by Musharraf to drive to and from
the capital.
The presidential convoy was returning from a conference at the Ministry of Higher
Education in the headquarters of the Islamic Conference Organization.
Sultan said it was too early to determine who might be responsible for the attack.
The attack has come a few days before a regional summit in Islamabad due to be
attended by India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
India condemned the attack.
Resentment
Jasim Taqi, a Pakistani writer and political analyst told Aljazeera.net the attempted
assassinations were related to Musharraf's stance against Jihad groups and his
concessions to the US and India.
Taqi said the president's policy had generated resentment in the army and
organisations backed by the Pakistani Intelligence. They fear Musharraf might
sacrifice Kashmir and the nuclear programme due to pressure from New Delhi, he said.
"Two suicide attackers in two cars tried to hit the president's vehicle. God has
saved him"
Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed,
Information Minister, Pakistan
Musharraf's enemies like al-Qaida, other hardline groups and among sections in the
army have increased, the analyst pointed out. The army has said it will not
investigate senior Pakistani scientists suspected to have leaked nuclear secrets to
Iran.
Al-Qaida has repeatedly threatened to assassinate Musharraf and has also called on the
Pakistani tribes to do the same, Taqi said, recalling the public call of the network's
second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri to kill the president.
The attempted assassination of Musharraf is the fourth since he assumed power in
Pakistan, two of the attempts occurred in Karachi and the other two in the military
capital, Rawalpindi, our correspondent said.
The attack came a day after Musharraf agreed to step-down as army chief by the end of
2004, ending a political stalemate that had paralysed parliament and stalled this
nation's return to democracy.
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