3 detained in Karachi blast

Authorities sifting through clues in the devastating attack on Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming procession here questioned three men Saturday, a source close to the investigation said.

The police and Bhutto’s associates acknowledged, however, that the list of groups and individuals who might have an interest in harming the former prime minister, who is seen as pro-Western, is a long one.

Police circulated a sketch of a man they believed blew himself up a few feet from Bhutto’s steel-reinforced vehicle, killing at least 136 people and injuring hundreds gathered to greet the former leader on her return after eight years of self-imposed exile.

Some Pakistani newspapers printed graphic photographs of the man’s severed head, his facial features clearly identifiable.

The three men being questioned were picked up in Punjab province, where several major Pakistani militant groups are based. A senior police investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police believed they might have traced the vehicle the bomber used to join in the massive procession.

Bhutto, and Pakistani authorities, have blamed Islamic militants for the attack, but she also suggested possible complicity on the part of some political allies of Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The 54-year-old former prime minister also has complained that security measures for her convoy were inadequate.

Musharraf’s government responded angrily Saturday, saying that everything possible had been done to ensure Bhutto’s safety but that she had courted danger by insisting on an hours-long open-air procession into the heart of Karachi.

“The government provided the best possible security to her,” said Tariq Azim, the minister of state for information.

Bhutto stayed out of sight Saturday, sequestered with aides at her residence in Karachi.

She had planned to hold a large rally this weekend in her family’s ancestral hometown of Larkana, where she was to visit the tomb of her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The elder Bhutto was hanged in 1979 by then-military ruler Gen. Zia ul-Haq. But all such appearances were on hold while party supporters observed three days of mourning in the wake of the apparent suicide attack early Friday.

Nearly all of those killed were Bhutto supporters who turned out to welcome her or police officers and security guards who were deployed around her vehicle.

In Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and its commercial center, tensions boiled over as angry Bhutto supporters sought to force shops and businesses to stay closed in observance of the mourning period. The protesters burned tires and threw stones at shopkeepers who failed to observe the closure.

Police said 14 people suffered gunshot wounds in daylong clashes in several neighborhoods.

Bhutto’s camp said the government might use the attack as a pretext for limiting campaign activity before parliamentary elections due early next year. Her Pakistan People’s Party is expected to perform strongly in the vote, giving her added leverage in power-sharing negotiations with Musharraf.

“I don’t see the election process being hindered,” Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told reporters. “We owe it to our people to have free and fair elections.”

Commentators, however, said the attack already was having a chilling effect on political activity.

The bombing “made it starkly clear that unless the streets are made safe, no free and fair elections can be held in January 2008,” the Daily Times newspaper said in an editorial.

Adding to the volatile atmosphere, five people were killed Saturday in a car bombing in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, the scene of a long-running insurgency. A previously unknown rebel group claimed responsibility.

laura.king@latimes.com