COUNTER-TERRORISM:

Pakistani president narrowly misses blast (AP, The Associated Press, 12/14/03)

A bomb exploded minutes after a motorcade carrying the Pakistani president passed a road near the capital on Sunday, but no one was hurt, officials said.

The blast damaged a bridge in Rawalpindi, about 10 miles from the capital, Islamabad, but President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was not harmed, state television PTV reported. [...]

There have been at least two past attempts to assassinate the Pakistani leader.

Both attacks failed, one when a car packed with explosives failed to detonate as Musharraf passed on a congested road in the southern port city of Karachi. Five militants were arrested for involvement in that attack.

Musharraf earned the wrath of hard-line Islamic groups after he choose to abandon the Taliban regime of neighboring Afghanistan and back the U.S.-led war against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda regime.

Our best ally in the war on terror continues to be the terrorists themselves, here doing their best to give the most important world leader, in terms of exterminating extremists in his own nation, a very personal stake in the fight.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 14, 2003 03:26 PM