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AP: Bomb attack kills scores in Pakistan as bhutto returns
to Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 18.
Two bombs exploded Thursday just seconds apart and feet from a truck carrying
the returning opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, narrowly
missing her but killing scores of people and bloodying her
triumphal homecoming after eight years in exile.
According to reports on local news stations late Friday
morning, 134 people had been killed and about 400 wounded.
Ms. Bhutto, who had spent eight hours on the open roof of
the truck waving to supporters, had climbed inside the
armored vehicle 10 minutes before the blasts occurred just
before midnight, said Rehman Malik, her security adviser and
close associate.
Ms. Bhutto's arrival at 2 p.m. had drawn huge crowds,
perhaps 200,000 or more, who danced on top of buses and
surged forward as she inched her way for hours through her
home city.
This is an important political event, as well as a great
tragedy in the ongoing horrors of war in this unsettled
region of the world. The GCP event was set for a 6 hour
period beginning almost an hour before the blast and
continuing for several hours after. The outcome is a strong
negative going trend with Chisquare 21261.364 on 21600 df
for p = 0.949, and Z = -1.635.
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