2 blasts strike crowd celebrating Bhutto's return

KARACHI, Pakistan - A suicide bombing in a crowd welcoming former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed at least 123 people Thursday night, shattering her celebratory procession through Pakistan’s biggest city after eight years in exile.

Two explosions went off near a truck carrying Bhutto, but police and officials of her party said she was not injured and was hurried to her house. An Associated Press photo showed a dazed-looking Bhutto being helped away.

There were conflicting reports on the number of people killed in the blasts. The Associated Press, citing officials from six hospitals, reported 126 dead and 248 wounded. Reuters, citing witnesses and a police official, reported 123 killed and more than 260 injured. There was no way to immediately reconcile the difference, but these figures make the attack one of the deadliest bomb strikes in Pakistan's history.

Bhutto flew home to lead her Pakistan People's Party in January parliamentary elections, drawing cheers from supporters massed in a sea of the party's red, green and black flags. The police chief said 150,000 were in the streets, while other onlookers estimated twice that.

The throngs reflected Bhutto's enduring political clout, but she has made enemies of Islamic militants by taking a pro-U.S. line and negotiating a possible political alliance with Pakistan's military ruler, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Security concerns from the start
An estimated 20,000 security officers had been deployed to protect Bhutto and her cavalcade of motorized rickshaws, colorful buses, cars and motorcycles in the streets of Pakistan's largest city.

Authorities had urged Bhutto to use a helicopter to reduce the risk of attack amid threats from extremists sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida, but she brushed off the concerns.

"I am not scared. I am thinking of my mission," she had told reporters on the plane from Dubai. "This is a movement for democracy because we are under threat from extremists and militants."

Last month, Bhutto told CNN she realized she was a target. Islamic militants, she said, "don't believe in women governing nations, so they will try to plot against me, but these are risks that must be taken. I'm prepared to take them."

Bhutto refuses to use protective cubicle
Leaving the airport, Bhutto refused to use a bulletproof glass cubicle that had been built atop the truck taking her to the tomb of Pakistan's founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, to give a speech. She squeezed between other party officials along a railing at the front.

Her procession had been creeping toward the center of Karachi for 10 hours, moving at a snail's pace while dancing and cheering supporters swarmed around the truck, when a small explosion erupted near the front of the vehicle.

That was quickly followed by a larger blast just feet from the truck, setting an escorting police van on fire and breaking windows in Bhutto's vehicle. Party members on top of the truck scrambled to the ground, one man jumping while others climbed down a ladder or over the side.

"Evidence available at the scene is suggesting it was a suicide bombing and ... exploded near police vehicles destroying the two police vans escorting Benazir Bhutto's truck," police officer Raja Umer Khitab said. He said several policemen died.

Scene from bomb attacks
Bodies lay motionless in the street, under a mural reading "Long Live Bhutto" on the side of the truck.

Aamir Qureshi / AFP - Getty Images Flames burn in the center of Karachi after two explosions strike near a procession carrying former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan Thursday after eight years of self-imposed exile.

"People were shouting for help but there was no one to help them out. It smelled like blood and smoke," said AP photographer B.K. Bangash, who was 150 feet from Bhutto's truck when he heard a small blast just before midnight.

The bombs exploded just after the truck crossed a bridge about halfway from the airport to the tomb.

Pools of blood, broken glass, tires, motorcycles and bits of clothing littered the ground. Men carried the injured away from burning cars. One bystander came upon a body, checked for signs of life, and moved on.

Some of the injured were rushed into a hospital emergency room on stretchers, and others were carried in rescuers' arms. Many of the wounded were covered in blood, and some had their clothes ripped off.

Two CNBC staff members in Pakistan were injured in the blast, according to the network. A camera operator and a correspondent had shrapnel injuries and were recoving in a Karachi hospital.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal, which operates CNBC.)

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