KARACHI - Three groups linked to Al Qaeda and Pakistan’s Taliban are plotting suicide attacks against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto when she returns to Karachi on Thursday to end eight years of self-exile, an official said. “There are intelligence reports that three different groups have plans to carry out attacks on Bhutto,” Ghulam Mohammad Mohtaram, Home Secretary of Sindh province, told Reuters on the eve of Bhutto’s return.| What's the over/under on the first attack? |
The official said the suicide attacks were being planned by Pakistani jihadi groups linked to Al Qaeda and a Pakistani Taliban group headed by Baitullah Mehsud. MehsudÂ’s fighters are already holding more than 200 Pakistani troops hostage in Waziristan, a tribal region on the border with Afghanistan, having captured them in late August.
Bhutto has said that if she was in power she would allow U.S. forces to strike against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistani territory, if her own forces were unable to carry out an attack.