PAKISTAN:A fresh wave of suicide bombings killed 52 people and wounded many others in Pakistan yesterday as the country braced for a key court verdict that could trigger further instability.
The supreme court is due to rule on the protracted struggle between President Pervez Musharraf and the chief justice he removed from office, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, as early as this morning.
If Mr Chaudhry is reinstated, it would constitute a significant setback to Gen Musharraf's plans for re-election. If not, more protests seem inevitable.
Gen Musharraf made a fresh appeal for unity and blamed his woes on "a few misguided elements bent upon killing their fellow Muslims". But the evidence suggests a deeper and more serious problem.
A giant bomb ripped through a security convoy escorting 10 Chinese workers through Hub, a town in southwestern Baluchistan province. At least 29 people, mostly soldiers, were killed but the Chinese escaped unscathed.
Authorities embarrassed by a string of attacks on Chinese nationals this month were relieved. "Allah has been very kind," said Maj Gen Saleem Nawaz. As an indication of Pakistan's many problems, authorities could not say if the attackers were Islamist militants or Baluch rebels.
The country has been convulsed by an unprecedented series of clashes between government and Islamist forces in the wake of the recent Red Mosque siege. Pro-Taliban militants have responded to the government storming of the mosque with a flurry of ferocious attacks which have killed over 160 people since July 3rd.
The violence is concentrated in the North-West Frontier Province, where a bomber killed six civilians and one policeman at a recruitment centre yesterday. The third attack killed at least 15, including two children, at a mosque in an army training centre in Kohat. On Tuesday the violence touched the capital, Islamabad, when a blast at a rally in support of Mr Chaudhry left 18 dead and some 60 wounded.
If the Taliban are Mr Musharraf's security crisis, Mr Chaudhry is his political nightmare. Over recent months the judge - whom Gen Musharraf accuses of corruption - has spearheaded a pro-democracy movement seeking to oust the president. Yesterday in court Mr Chaudhry's lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, warned that failure to reinstate his client would "create more instability".
"I will show you this [ the government's charge sheet] is the mother of evil to come," he said.
Faced with such a plethora of crises, Gen Musharraf has vowed not to impose a state of emergency but said he would have himself re-elected for another five-year term next autumn. But those plans will inevitably be challenged in court - and possibly before Mr Chaudhry if he is reinstated today.
Gen Musharraf must also resist pressure from Washington. A US intelligence report this week stated that Pakistani attempts to round up al-Qaeda suspects hiding in the tribal belt had failed.
"It hasn't worked for Pakistan," said homeland security adviser Fran Townsend. "It hasn't worked for the US."
Gen Musharraf is also scrambling to revive a peace pact with militants in North Waziristan which collapsed last weekend after local Taliban accused him of reneging on promises. Yesterday a group of 30 tribal elders travelled to Waziristan to revive the deal.
Opposition forces led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto insist that the only solution to the crisis is Gen Musharraf's resignation followed by fair elections. However, Ms Bhutto has also said she is ready to cut a powersharing deal.
Meanwhile, the financial impact of the instability continues to affect the Karachi stock exchange which continued to slide, dropping 3.4 per cent.
- (Guardian News service)