Dozens dead in Pakistan blasts as Bhutto returns

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto (waving from top of truck) is greeted by supporters after her arrival in Karachi October 18, 2007. Two explosions hit Bhutto's convoy on Friday killing up to 35 people as she returned to Pakistan from eight years in self-imposed exile.

KARACHI (Reuters) - Two explosions hit former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's convoy on Friday killing up to 35 people as she returned to Pakistan from eight years in self-imposed exile.

Television channels said Bhutto was safe and had left the truck that had been transporting her through roads thronged by hundreds of thousands of people in Karachi, Pakistan's most violent city.

Militants linked to al Qaeda, angered by Bhutto's support for the United States war on terrorism, had threatened to assassinate her.

More than 20 bodies could be seen on the ground near the scene of one of the blasts. A senior security official said the death toll was between 30 and 35 people.

Some 20,000 security personnel had been deployed to provide protection.

Intelligence reports suggested at least three jihadi groups linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban were plotting suicide attacks, according to a provincial official.

Bhutto had returned to lead her Pakistan People's Party into national elections meant to return the country to civilian rule.

For years Bhutto had vowed to return to Pakistan to end military dictatorship, yet she came back as a potential ally for President Pervez Musharraf, the army chief who took power in a 1999 coup.

The United States is believed to have quietly encouraged their alliance to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan pro-Western and committed to fighting al Qaeda and supporting NATO's efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.

Dressed in a green kameez, a loose tunic, her head covered by a white scarf, Bhutto had earlier stood in plain view on top of her truck, ignoring police advice to stay behind its bullet proof glass, as it edged through crowds waving the red, black and green tricolour of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

Billboards along the route bore giant images of BB, as she is known, and her late father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the country's first popularly elected prime minister, who was ousted and executed by his army chief, General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq.

"Now that the people have given their verdict, it is necessary that the elections should be free and fair," she said before setting off at the head of a procession into Karachi.