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16-469: Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the father of Benazir, was buried in the village after being executed following a military coup that removed him from power. On 27 October 2007, nine days after the first assassination attempt against her after returning from exile, Benazir Bhutto arrived in the village amidst tight security to visit her father's mausoleum—she was greeted by 4,000 supporters in the village. Two months later on 28 December, following her assassination , she

32-757: A "cage" on the back of the Atlas, to accommodate the bomb. As the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approached, a few unsubstantiated reports came out of Pakistan that various wanted al-Qaeda suspects had been captured in that country and handed over to the Americans without any legal process. On 12 July 2002, a police officer in Karachi reported that Pakistani authorities had arrested Sheikh Ahmed Saleem , referring to him as an alleged financial advisor of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. He

48-503: A more junior al-Qaeda figure, a Saudi known only as Riyadh or Riaz. Riyadh in turn led investigators to Salim, who was arrested in Kharadar in the south of the city. Amnesty International quoted two more press claims that Swedan had been arrested in July 2002, and transferred to US custody. On 6 July 2007, Swedan was listed as a possible CIA "Secret Prisoner" by Amnesty International, despite

64-484: A photograph of the suspect responsible for the suicide attack. On 23 October, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz rejected Pakistan Peoples Party 's demand for a probe into the suicide blast by foreign experts, expressing confidence that Pakistani law-enforcement agencies could probe in a very objective manner. In the immediate aftermath of the attempt on her life, Bhutto wrote a letter to General Pervez Musharraf naming four persons whom she suspected of engineering

80-598: The Taliban in Pakistan instead. Al-Qaeda's chief of operations for Pakistan, Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam , was believed to be behind the attack. He was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan along with his lieutenant, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan , on 1 January 2009. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mehsud was also implicated in the attack. He was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan in August 2009. The bombing resulted in at least 180 deaths and 500 injuries. Most of

96-716: The United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings . He was alleged to have purchased the Toyota and Nissan trucks used in the attacks, flying out of Nairobi to Karachi, Pakistan five days before the assault was launched. Swedan was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list since its inception in October 2001. He was born in Mombasa , Kenya . The UN 1267 Committee referred to him as Ahmed Salim Swedan Sheikh . He

112-721: The attacks. Careful not to name Musharraf himself, she chose to name senior military officials and politicians in Musharraf's regime instead, including Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi , a rival PML-Q politician and the then chief minister of the province of Punjab, Hamid Gul , former director of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, and Ijaz Shah , director general of the Intelligence Bureau, another premier military intelligence agency on Pakistan. Musharraf's regime blamed terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda and elements of

128-474: The dead were members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Former Pakistan national football team player Abdul Khaliq was also among the deceased. 24°53′05″N 67°05′23″E  /  24.884733°N 67.089638°E  / 24.884733; 67.089638 Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan (9 April 1960/1969 – 1 January 2009) was a fugitive wanted in

144-642: The officials may have confused Ahmed Salim, the FBI-wanted Kenyan who had run a trucking business, with a Sudanese man with a similar name, Mamdouh Salim . In fact Mamdouh Salim had already been captured in 1998 in Germany. On 9 September 2002, the Lahore-based Daily Times once again reported that Ahmed Salim had indeed been arrested earlier that summer, on 11 July 2002, in Mithadar , an area very close to

160-499: The place from where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was also arrested a month earlier, according to the paper. But KSM was actually captured a year later. On 11 September 2002, journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad of the Asia Times wrote that back in July 2002, Pakistani intelligence agents were led to Salim's cell by satellite telephone intercepts provided by the FBI. These led to the arrest in Karachi of

176-399: The route about halfway from the airport to the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah for a scheduled rally, just after Bhutto's truck had crossed a bridge. Police vehicles bore the brunt of the blasts, which completely destroyed three police vans and killed at least 20 policemen in the vehicles. Conflicting reports indicate that Bhutto, who was not injured in the attack, was either sitting on top of

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192-523: The truck or had just climbed into the compartment of the truck at the time of the explosion. Bhutto was escorted to her residence, Bilawal House . The victims were rushed to Jinnah Hospital , Liaquat National Hospital , Civil Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital . In a press conference on 19 October 2007, Bhutto said that her security team were unable to prevent the attack because of the streetlights being turned off, and called for an inquiry into why this happened. On 20 October, authorities released

208-604: Was also known as Sheikh Ahmad Salem Suweidan , Sheikh Ahmed Salem Swedan , Sheikh Swedan , Sheikh Bahamadi , Ahmed Ally , Bahamad , Sheik Bahamad , Ahmed the Tall and Abu Yahya al-Kini . Swedan had, in the past, managed a trucking business in Kenya. He purchased a beige Toyota Dyna truck in Nairobi, and a 1987 Nissan Atlas refrigeration truck in Dar es-Salaam. Six metal bars were used to form

224-506: Was an attack on a motorcade carrying former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto . The bombing occurred two months before she was assassinated . The streets of Karachi ground to a halt to welcome the return of Benazir Bhutto, after an eight-year self-imposed exile during which she lived in Dubai and London . Two explosions occurred in front of the rallying truck from which she greeted her supporters and party members at approximately 00:52 PST , on

240-466: Was buried in the mausoleum where hundreds of thousands of mourners had gathered. The following year on what would have been her 55th birthday, party activists arranged a function to pay tribute to her. This Sindh location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 2007 Karachi bombing The Karsaz bombing attack occurred on 18 October 2007 in Karachi , Pakistan ; it

256-486: Was reportedly caught along with two other al Qaeda militants. The officer further misidentified Saleem as a Sudan national, who had apparently fled Afghanistan for Pakistan after the US-led military campaign began in October 2001. The three militants were arrested together during an overnight raid on a suburban apartment in the commercial port city of Karachi. However, it later was suggested that Pakistani news organizations and

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