Islamabad: Pakistan's capital city was placed on high alert on Tuesday after President Pervez Musharraf said he ordered troops to shoot anyone trying to disrupt next month's elections.
Pakistani political leaders face a looming threat of attack and must get serious about their security and avoid unnecessary exposure in the run-up to a February general election, the government said on Tuesday.
"It is of paramount importance that the political leadership is sensitised about the looming threat," Interior Ministry spokesman Javel Iqbal Cheema told a regular briefing.
Musharraf said the polls would not be delayed and expressed confidence they would be peaceful. "I have said to the rangers and army shoot anyone who tries to do anything of this sort [disrupting the polls]," he said in a speech at the opening of a new bridge.
The government has blamed Al Qaida-linked militants on the recent violence.
President Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup eight years ago, is facing increasingly potent challenges to his rule.
A spasm of violence on Monday underscored those challenges.
Troops and militants clashed near the Afghan border, leaving 30 dead. Separately, a bomb killed at least nine people and wounded 52 on Monday in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi.
Arif Ahmad Khan, a top government official in the city, said forensic evidence has been collected from the scene of the bombing outside a textile factory, but "it was too early to say who was behind it or give any motive". Troops patrolled the streets of the city, which was placed on high alert, he said.
Suicide bombing
On Tuesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up when troops opened fire as he drove a car toward a checkpoint in Mohmand, a tribal region close to the Afghan border, an army statement said. A second militant in the car was killed by gunfire.
Last week, 20 people were killed in a suicide blast in the eastern city of Lahore.
The elections were delayed six weeks amid violent chaos that followed the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on December 27 in a gun and suicide bomb attack that the government blamed on extremists.
Musharraf said the polls would not be delayed again and expressed confidence they would be peaceful.
"I have said to the rangers and army shoot anyone who tries to do anything of this sort [disrupting the polls]," he said in a speech at the opening of a new bridge on Monday.
Bhutto's party and the other major opposition grouping of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are expected to do well in the polls.
Pakistani political leaders face a looming threat of attack and must get serious about their security and avoid unnecessary exposure in the run-up to a February general election, the government said yesterday.
Campaigning for the parliamentary elections has yet to get going again but is expected to pick up after a religious commemoration on January 19 and 20.
"It is of paramount importance that the political leadership is sensitised about the looming threat," Interior Ministry spokesman Javel Iqbal Cheema told a regular briefing.
Cheema said the authorities aimed to provide "foolproof" security for all political leaders but said they too had to act responsibly, and the Interior Ministry was issuing security guidelines.
Recommendations included avoiding unnecessary exposure, keeping travel plans unpredictable and holding small election meetings.
"Big rallies should be avoided as far as possible," Cheema said.
"Unnecessary exposure during slow movement of vehicles should be avoided," he said.
Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was attacked as she stood up through the sunroof of her armoured car to wave to supporters just outside her rally venue.
A gunman fired at least three shots at her moments before a bomb blast that killed more than 20 bystanders.
Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, de facto leader of her political party, is demanding a UN investigation of her killing.
- Reuters
