Blast at Pakistan Rally Kills 25

Campaigning resumes across nation for Feb. 18 elections
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 9, 2008 10:47 AM CST
Blast at Pakistan Rally Kills 25
Pakistani volunteers take out an injured person, a victim of suicide bombing in Charsadda town, from an ambulance at a local hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008. A suicide bomber struck at an election rally Saturday in northwestern Pakistani town of Charsadda. (AP Photo/Mohammad...   (Associated Press)

A suicide bomber killed 25 people and wounded dozens in northwestern Pakistan today as campaigning resumed across the nation for elections later this month, the AP reports. The blast occurred at a rally for a secular opposition party. No group claimed responsibility, but the government blamed Islamist extremists. Elsewhere, Benazir Bhutto's widowed husband urged a massive crowd to help him rescue the country.

"I have the responsibility to save Pakistan," Asif Ali Zardari told 100,000 supporters at a rally of the Pakistan People's Party in Bhutto's home province of Sindh. "This is our country and we have to save it." In Islamabad, meanwhile, police fired water cannons at hundreds of lawyers protesting the detention of the nation's former Supreme Court chief. (More Pakistan stories.)

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