Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose funeral was held today, died from injuries she suffered when hitting her vehicle’s sunroof according to one report.

The Interior Minister spokesman said a post mortem found no bullets or shrapnel in her body, but an autopsy was not performed. Pakistani officials claim that an investigation is under way to determine why an autopsy wasn’t performed.

Regardless of what exactly caused her to die, the Interior Minister insisted that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attack. He claims that intelligence officials intercepted a phone call about a plot to kill the former Prime Minister.

“We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination,” ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told a news conference.”

Mehsud is one of Pakistan’s most wanted militant leaders and is based in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border.

Cheema said authorities had recorded an intercept on Friday morning in which Mehsud had congratulated his people for carrying out the attack.

He also said Mehsud was behind a suicide bomb attack on Bhutto in Karachi that killed about 140 people hours after she arrived back in the country from eight years of exile on October 18 this year.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was buried Friday in her ancestral hometown, one day after her assassination in Rawalpindi.

She was buried in Naudero, Sindhi province, 350 miles from the southern city of Karachi. Her husband and three children arrived Friday to prepare for the ceremony, and thousands of mourners joined the funeral procession.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the streets of Naudero, many weeping and beating their heads as they walked behind the white ambulance that carried her flag-draped coffin the three mile journey from her family home to the magnificent, three-domed mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Baksh where her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, another charismatic political leader to die a violent death, already lies buried.

A huge roar went up as the coffin, covered in the red, black and green flag of her Pakistan People’s Party, arrived at the gates of the white mausoleum. Inside, a mullah led funeral prayers, while the crowds raised their hands in front of their faces and chanted “Allahu Akhbar” (God is Great) three times.

Cities across Pakistan came to a standstill, with schools, public offices and private businesses shut and public transport halted, as the country began three days of official mourning for the opposition leader.

Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader and former Prime Minister, has been killed in a suicide bombing on her political rally today.

Ms Bhutto had been addressing crowds at the garrison city of Rawalpindi, ahead of Pakistan’s general election next month, when witnesses say she was shot through the neck and chest then the bomber detonated his explosives, killing around 20 people.

Ms. Bhutto was declared dead by doctors at a hospital in Rawalpindi at 6:16 p.m. after the doctors had tried to resuscitate her for thirty-five minutes.

As news of her death filtered out, Ms Bhutto’s supporters at the hospital began chanting “Dog, Musharraf, dog,” referring to Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf.

Some of them smashed the glass door at the main entrance of the emergency unit, others burst into tears.

Russia and the United States both swiftly issued condemnations of the atrocity, which was being blamed on Islamic militants.

A Russian foreign ministry spokesman predicted that it would bring fresh instability to the region, and trigger a fresh round of terrorist attacks.

-Chris Jones

Twin car bombs near United Nations offices and an Algerian government building killed at least 45 people in the deadliest attack in the capital, Algiers, in more than a decade.

Many of the dead were students aboard a bus that was en route to a university when it was struck by the second car bomb.

The bomb near the United Nations building exploded around 9:30 a.m. on narrow Emile Payen Street, collapsing much of the Development Program’s white multistory building and hurling chunks of rubble across the street.

The blast blew out doors and windows of the buildings facing the Development Program building, including one housing the United Nations refugee agency. At least one staff member was killed there.

It was the first time that a recent bombing campaign by Islamist militants had touched the area, a quiet residential quarter of Hydra, which is home of many embassies and their diplomats on the so-called heights of Algiers.

Two bombs exploded Thursday night near a truck carrying former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on her triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years in exile, killing at least 108 people 126 people and wounding 150, an official said. Party workers and police said Bhutto was unhurt.

An initial small explosion was followed by a huge blast just feet from the front of the truck carrying Bhutto during a procession through Karachi. The blast shattered windows in her vehicle and set a police escort vehicle on fire.

Those traveling atop the truck with Bhutto climbed down, with one man jumping off while others climbed down. Police Chief Azhar Farooqi told Dawn News that Bhutto was rushed from the area under contingency plans.

-Chris Jones

Dozens of people are feared dead in two large explosions near to where former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was being welcomed home.

Bhutto’s truck had just passed when the blasts happened in Karachi, just hours after she ended her eight-year exile.

Hundreds of thousands of people had lined the route to see her. Militants linked to al Qaeda, angered by her support for the US war on terrorism, had threatened to assassinate her.

Indian police said on Monday that an explosion that killed six people and injured 32 in a packed cinema hall in northern India was a “terrorist” bombing.

Hundreds of people — mainly poor migrant workers — were crammed into the theatre in the industrial city of Ludhiana in Punjab state to watch Sunday’s late-night screening of a new Bollywood comedy.

“It was a bomb blast. It is a terror act. We are trying to find out the exact nature of explosives used,” said a senior police official on condition of anonymity.

Police have not named any suspect but a series of blasts across India in recent years have been blamed on Muslim extremists allegedly linked to Pakistan and Bangladesh.

India’s 140 million Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr on Sunday, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, and one of the biggest Islamic festivals.

LONDON — A judge sentenced five men to life in prison Monday for plotting to attack targets in London, including a popular nightclub, power plants and shopping mall, with bombs made from a half-ton stockpile of fertilizer.

The trial for the first time exposed connections between the defendants and the deadly 2005 al-Qaida-linked attack on the city’s transit system.

Details kept secret to ensure a fair trial showed that counterterrorism agents tracking the five men had also stumbled onto the transit plotters. And despite disturbing signs that the transit plot was in the works, the agents failed to piece them together in time to prevent the July 7, 2005 bombings that killed 52 people, testimony and official briefings during the trial showed.

The revelations are at odds with statements by Tony Blair’s government after the 2005 attack. Senior ministers, who a month earlier had lowered the country’s alert status, said the 2005 attack was unexpected and the perpetrators unknown.

Omar Khyam was found guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions made from a chemical fertilizer that could endanger life. Also found guilty were Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar, Waheed Mahmood and Alahuddin Amin.

“All of you may never be released. It’s not a foregone conclusion,” Judge Michael Astill told them.

Two others, Nabeel Hussain and Shujah Mahmood, were cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions. All were arrested on March 30, 2004.

The jury that convicted the five men deliberated for nearly a month after nearly a year of testimony in Britain’s longest terror trial. The men, all British citizens, were accused of plotting a series of attacks using more than 1,300 pounds of fertilizer they had placed in a storage unit.

Court-imposed restrictions prohibited reporters from revealing links between the men and the four 2005 suicide transit bombers until the case ended.

Counterterrorism officials acknowledged that intelligence that could have raised alarms before the July 7 transit attacks was never thoroughly investigated, explaining they were overwhelmed by seemingly more urgent threats.

A government security official gave one-on-one briefings with reporters toward the end of the trial, detailing the path that security agents had followed.

As agents monitoring the fertilizer plot listened in on a bug, they heard one of the July 7 bombers, Mohammed Siddique Khan, warn that he planned to kill non-Muslims, the security official said during the briefing, demanding anonymity to discuss sensitive details of the cases.

A tracking device was placed in Khan’s car a year before the 2005 suicide bombings and details of his phone calls and meetings with radicals were reported to Britain’s domestic spy agency, MI5, on at least four occasions, he said.

Khan also took militia training in Pakistan with at least some of the fertilizer plotters, a witness in the case and officials said.

But, lacking resources, MI5 never pieced together the shreds of intelligence, the official acknowledged.

“There needs to be that killer fact and it just wasn’t there,” he said, noting that Khan had used several aliases.

Mohammed Junaid Babar, an American FBI al-Qaida informant, had reported that a Briton using an alias _ later identified as Khan _ attended a Pakistan militia camp with al-Qaida linked radicals from Britain and the United States in 2003.

With accomplice Shehzad Tanweer, Khan visited Pakistan again in 2004.

A surveillance team recorded Khan and Tanweer during a 2004 operation to monitor the fertilizer plot _ bugging 100 phone lines, a vehicle and two houses. Agents also took pictures of Khan in the company of suspected terrorists.

As agents eavesdropped, Khan _ who called himself Milly _ warned he would join the “Arab mujahedeen to fight abroad.” But his threat was not uncommon or enough to prompt his arrest, the security official said.

In 2004, Babar told U.S. officials that Khan _ whom he recognized from a blurred surveillance photograph _ had sought meetings with al-Qaida leaders. But a tip to London authorities was too vague to prompt action, the official said.

Fellow transit bomber Germaine Lindsay’s phone number was later discovered among records in a separate plot officials still won’t discuss, he said. Only bomber Hasib Hussain was totally unknown.

“The government said there was no way of preventing what happened,” said Graham Foulkes, whose son David, 22, was killed by Khan’s bomb. “That was a lie.”

When the fertilizer gang were arrested in March 2004, police and MI5 uncovered 15 “essential” targets amid their associates _ those thought to be preparing imminent attacks on Britain.

Another 40 _ including Khan and Tanweer _ were ranked “desirable,” to be trailed when resources allowed.

Intelligence on Khan and his cell was pieced together only months after the attack, the official said _ when their identities and aliases were established. Charges against three alleged accomplices were leveled last month.

Links between plots appear to strengthen claims the July 7 attacks were directed by al-Qaida, a senior police official conceded, demanding anonymity to discuss the case.

Officials say since July 2005, six other planned terrorist strikes have been halted _ but that brings no comfort for Foulkes.

“The fact is,” he said. “A known terrorist was allowed to kill my son and 51 others.”

[Washington Post]