Benazir Bhutto to launch campaign in Pakistan

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto got a new death menace, but she is  going to conduct campaign in Pakistan. However she will have to avoid mass rallies because of the risk of suicide and roadside bombings.

Photo: Benazir Bhutto to launch campaign in Pakistan

Five days after the suicide bombing that killed at least 136 at her homecoming procession in Karachi, Bhutto said her lawyer received a letter from an unidentified "friend of al-Qaida" threatening to slaughter her "like a goat."

Bhutto said the letter was addressed to her lawyer, Farooq Naik, and had been left for him at the Supreme Court in Islamabad. She said Naik was writing to the chief justice to alert him of the threat.

"There are elements who want to kill us," Bhutto told reporters at her heavily guarded residence in this southern Pakistan city. "They are petrified that the Pakistan People's Party will return (to power) and that democracy will return."

"They are trying to derail the democratic process because they know if the people are employed and educated the forces of extremism and terrorism will be weakened," she said.

The authenticity of the letter could not be confirmed. Bhutto said the writer claimed to be the "head of the suicide bombers and a friend of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden."

Bhutto returned Thursday from eight years in exile to campaign for parliamentary elections due in January, after months of talks with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that could see them working side-by-side in the next government.

She said that after discussions, her party had decided she should avoid staging mass rallies because of the risk of suicide and roadside bombings, but would still address public meetings.

"The party decided I should go from Karachi to Islamabad, Lahore or Larkana (Bhutto's hometown) in the next couple of days. We will be not be holding public rallies but will be traveling to meet the people in other provinces," she said.