Her carnage-strewn return from exile deepened the faultlines that threaten the Islamic republic of 160 million people, which has lurched from one existential threat to another in its six decades of independence.

The blasts could move Bhutto closer to a power-sharing deal with key US ally President Pervez Musharraf, which western nations have pushed as a solution to the militancy seeping from Pakistan across the world.

Bhutto pledged to take on Islamic extremism in a defiant speech after the suicide and grenade attack on her homecoming parade that killed nearly 140 people, adding that she did not blame the "state or the government."

But fingerpointing over the alleged involvement of former officials and spy agencies in the wake of the attack could still scupper a pact that would likely bring a measure of stability ahead of general elections in January.

Military ruler Musharraf meanwhile could yet break his promise to quit as army chief by November, eight years after the coup that brought him to power, if the Supreme Court overturns his recent victory in a presidential election.

His popularity has slumped since he tried to sack the court's chief justice in March -- while Islamic militants have paid him back for a bloody raid on the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July with 22 suicide bombings since then.

The militants too are at a crucial juncture, having taken control of the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan but fearing the move to civilian, democratic rule will foil their bid to spread Taliban-style Islamic sharia law.

"We are heading towards a major crisis," Moonis Ahmar, professor of international relations at Karachi University, told AFP.

Analysts said Pakistan itself now faces the choice Bhutto did when she returned home -- face a mortal risk at the hands of militants, or give in to extremists.

If the country chooses to go head-on at the threat, then political consensus will be vital, they added.

"Bhutto and Musharraf will be more vulnerable if they stand divided and pursue power separately," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political science professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

"We have to put the political house in order, because as long as we have political contests and rivalries we may not be able to sustain our fight against terrorism," he added.

A key step will be severing the militants' umbilical cord: their links to a network of rogue or former army and intelligence officials who offer financial and logistical support, analysts said.

Bhutto implicated such officials in the immediate aftermath of Thursday's Karachi attacks, while Musharraf admitted several months ago that some former spies were still backing the Islamists.

"Some of the rogue elements in the establishment who feel there is pressure on them for democracy want to create insecurity to deny mainstream political parties space," Karachi University's Ahmar added.

"They tried to kill two birds with one stone in Karachi."

Islamic militants have previously tried to kill Musharraf -- marked for death by Osama bin Laden in a recent video -- at least three times, including a bid to shoot down his plane during the Red Mosque crisis.

The election process itself, marred by violence at the best of times in ethnically and politically divided Pakistan, could now be at risk amid the current wave of violence, analysts said.

"Perhaps the political parties will have to redefine their strategy to conduct electioneering in the face of this very serious threat," said political analyst Shafqat Mahmood.

But a strategy to combat radicalism, especially in the tribal areas where it is mixed with Pashtun nationalism, is an even greater challenge -- with the use of force proving increasingly counterproductive.

Around 250 people, believed to include some civilians, died in fighting along the Afghan border earlier this month in battles between militants and the army.

"Unfortunately General Musharraf and Bhutto are seen by militants as adversaries, and the option of dialogue goes out of window. The only option left is use of force, which is not going to resolve the problem," Mahmood said.

earlier related report
Commentary: Murderous premonition
by Arnaud De Borchgrave
Before boarding her flight from Dubai to Karachi that would take her back to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, 54, knew an attempt would be made upon her life. She e-mailed this reporter, eight hours before flight time, "I have been informed that Baitul Masood, an Afghan, Hamza Bin Laden, an Arab, and a Red Mosque militant have been sent to kill me. I wrote (President Pervez) Musharraf telling him that if something happened, then I wanted these three held responsible -- the people who I think are behind them. I have also left a copy of the letter in case something happens (to me), but I expect all to go smoothly."

Well, it didn't. Greeted by hundreds of thousands of supporters in Karachi, Pakistan's port city of 15 million, she was quickly bundled into a special bulletproof, truck-like vehicle with two decks and a dome-like turret from which she could wave to the 20-deep crowds on either side of her route home. Some 30,000 security forces were quickly overwhelmed and the motorcade could only inch forward, a near-perfect situation for a suicide bomber. The orange fireball killed 138 and wounded almost 200, shattered the windows of Bhutto's truck and blew off one of its doors.

Bhutto had just walked down to the lower deck of her vehicle as her first stop was going to be the tomb of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of the Pakistani republic. The 15 who had stayed topside were splattered with blood as body parts flew through a hot sultry evening. The twice Prime Minister Bhutto was eased out of the truck into a car that sped off among the dead and wounded.

Musharraf called the attack a "conspiracy against democracy." Conspiracy seems to be Pakistan's middle name. For more than half its 60-year life as an independent nation, Pakistan has been ruled by the military. And ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, decided to turn his back on the Taliban and join the U.S. war on terror, the military has been in charge. The real power is in the hands of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency that permeates every facet of national life. Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who spent six years in prison on graft and corruption charges, was quick to blame the intelligence agencies for the attack as they feared Bhutto would win next January's elections -- and be back as prime minister a third time.

More likely were the pro-Taliban and pro-al-Qaida terrorist groups that have never been successfully stamped out. Two of Pakistan's four provinces are governed by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of six politico-religious parties that are pro-Taliban and admire Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist leader.

Over the past few months Musharraf and Bhutto secretly negotiated a power-sharing deal. Musharraf was to get himself re-elected president for five years by the four provincial assemblies, the federal assembly and the Senate, and then take off his uniform. The Supreme Court is yet to validate this vote as all opposition parties boycotted Musharraf's election, which gave him a near-unanimous nod from parliamentarians who are about to lose their seats. For her part, Bhutto agreed to recognize Musharraf as a civilian president while she took her chances in next January's general election. And if her Pakistan People's Party, the country's most popular, won a majority, she would then be asked by Musharraf to form a new government.

That's a lot of hurdles before Bhutto becomes prime minister again. And even if she does reclaim her national leadership role, obtaining the loyalty of ISI and the respect of the military is a formidable challenge.

A week before her departure from London to Dubai for the Emirates flight home, she e-mailed this reporter to say, "While I very much want you near me and will have you seated next to me for the final leg to Karachi, and have on my priority list, I fear there will be a situation that would endanger your safety. I also think it would be wiser for you to join me later after I have settled down. But if you still want to come, I will understand." We opted not to go.

One of Bhutto's trusted intelligence contacts in Pakistan, a retired ISI field-grade officer, sent her a grim report before her departure about the situation in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, seven tribal agencies that form most of the 1,400-mile frontier of craggy mountains with Afghanistan. The report's main points:

-- FATA is ungovernable and out of control.

-- The army is still facing high casualties. It's now well over 1,000 killed and 3,000 wounded. Of the 245 Pakistani soldiers captured by Taliban fighters (they were ambushed in a narrow pass and surrendered without a fight), 100 were released but an unknown number have been Talibanized and decided to join the insurgency.

-- The army feels strongly that this has been a U.S.-ordered military campaign imposed on Musharraf.

-- Foreign Secretary Khurshid Kasuri has said as much in conversations with several foreign ambassadors.

-- There are several thousand Uzbek, Tajik and Arab fighters in FATA who have married local women and are more loyal to al-Qaida than the Taliban.

-- The local FATA population refuses to assist the army.

-- The only political party that has been allowed to operate in FATA is MMA. It is important to open up FATA to Pakistan's principal political parties. This would be a way to promote the growth of "moderate" Talibans, weaning them away from the hard-line core.

-- Madrassa reform has still gotten nowhere after several years of U.S. aid to promote change in these Koranic schools that have turned out several million youngsters since Sept. 11 who have learned Arabic and the Koran by rote, as well as the conviction that America and Israel are crusading powers whose only objective is the destruction of Islam.

-- A former ISI general heads the Education Ministry, and U.S. aid has not altered the bleak outlook for some 12,000 madrassas.

-- The Valley of Swat, once a princely state under the British Raj, is a previously moderate region that is being slowly Talibanized through private FM radio stations that sing the praises of Taliban jihadis.

All this would be bad enough for a Muslim state of 160 million. But Pakistan is one of the world's eight nuclear powers.

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