Pakistani President Survives New Assassination Attempt

President Pervez Musharraf survived the second attempt on his life in 11 days Thursday when two suicide attackers exploded vehicle bombs as his convoy passed, killing at least 14 people.

“This was an assassination attempt,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said in a telephone interview. “Two suicide bombers attacked, and God has given new life to Musharraf.”

Ahmed said Musharraf was not hurt by the twin blasts around 1:40 p.m. in a densely populated area of Rawalpindi, a suburb of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. The dead included five policemen, five soldiers -- including military intelligence officers -- and four civilians, sources said. Another 46 people were wounded, the Interior Ministry said.

Ahmed would not speculate on who may have carried out the assassination attempt, which occurred near a police station. But the information minister suggested there was a foreign hand behind it. “Of course, local groups don’t use suicide bombs in Pakistan,” he said.

Musharraf, a former commando who came to power in a bloodless 1999 coup, appeared calm and determined in an interview hours later on state television.

“Total security against suicide bombers really cannot be guaranteed by any force,” Musharraf said. “So while we need to strengthen our security, and take to task anyone who has shown a lapse, one shouldn’t make any generalized, impulsive reactions of considering everyone to have lapsed on security,” Musharraf said.

Witnesses said the explosions from two white Suzuki minivans destroyed two cars in the president’s motorcade and two nearby gas stations, setting them ablaze. The powerful blasts crumpled several other cars and blew out the windows of several homes. Musharraf said he grieved for the dead and “will certainly compensate the people who were killed and take care of their families.”

Eyewitness Nasir Siddiqui said he was at a gas pump when Musharraf’s convoy was passing. A minivan bolted from the gas station toward the motorcade, Siddiqui said.

The suicide attacker’s vehicle “suddenly came on the road and hit a black Mercedes, which was just behind Gen. Musharraf’s car,” Siddiqui said. “After a few seconds, I heard another blast and saw body parts of people flying in the air.”

The attack was about 200 yards from a bridge where Musharraf narrowly escaped another assassination attempt Dec. 14. Investigators have said Musharraf survived that attack because a high-tech jamming device in the president’s vehicle delayed the detonation of a remote-controlled bomb.

Investigators haven’t publicly named any suspects in that attack, but privately they have pointed the finger at Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network. Some Al Qaeda commanders have used Pakistan as an operations base, and the organization has allies among recently banned militant groups in the country.

Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said security around Musharraf was increased after last week’s assassination try. It was already very tight following at least one attempt on the president’s life last year, in which a truck bomb failed to explode as his convoy passed in the southern city of Karachi.

Thursday’s attack came as Musharraf returned to his official residence in a heavily fortified army compound after attending a function in Islamabad.

Police said they tried to stop the assailants’ vehicles, which broke through security barriers. One of the attackers hit a police van positioned to block any vehicle from entering the road, while moments later, the second suicide bomber managed to hit a vehicle in the convoy.

Ahmed, the information minister, dismissed the suggestion that the list of possible suspects in Thursday’s assassination attempt could include members of the Pakistani military, which is headquartered not far from where the attack occurred. The military’s ranks have long included those sympathetic to Al Qaeda and Afghanistan’s deposed Taliban regime.

“This did not happen in a military area,” Ahmed said. “It is civilian and military area -- mixed. This was carried out by outsiders. It has nothing to do with the military.”

Last month, Musharraf launched the third crackdown in two years on militant Islamic groups, which have widespread support in Pakistan, based largely on their guerrilla war against Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region.

Militants from an organization with known ties to Al Qaeda have been convicted in a failed attempt last year to kill Musharraf, a front-line U.S. ally in the war against terrorism. An explosives-laden Suzuki van was set to explode in April 2002 as Musharraf’s convoy passed a shopping center in Karachi, a hotbed of extremism.

Police have said that one of those militants stood at a gas pump and pressed a remote-control detonator several times, but the truck bomb did not detonate. Authorities charged an officer in Pakistan’s paramilitary forces, called the Rangers, with supplying information on Musharraf’s planned route.

The three militants were sentenced to 10 years in prison. They belonged to the Al-Almi faction of Harkat-ul-Moujahedeen, a banned militant group also blamed for a suicide car bombing on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, which killed 11 Pakistanis in June 2002. Investigators later found remnants of a Suzuki Hi-Roof, the same type of vehicle spotted in Thursday’s attempt on Musharraf’s life.

The latest attack came a day after Musharraf announced a deal with an alliance of hard-line Islamic political parties in which he promised to resign from his post as commanding general of the armed forces next year.

In exchange, the alliance agreed to accept Musharraf as president until 2007.

Just as he was solving problems with parliament, Musharraf came under criticism for the government’s admission that Pakistani scientists may have leaked nuclear secrets to Iran.

Musharraf is set to host an important summit of leaders from the South Asian Assn. for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, scheduled to begin Jan. 4. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has said he will attend the summit, raising hopes that his visit to Islamabad could give a boost to efforts to start formal peace talks between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

After Thursday’s blasts, Hayat, the interior minister, suggested the attackers might have been trying to scuttle Vajpayee’s first visit to Pakistan in four years. “This may be an attempt by disgruntled elements who do not want to see the SAARC summit held,” Hayat told reporters.

*

Times staff writer Watson reported from Kabul, Afghanistan, and special correspondent Zaidi from Rawalpindi.