Bomb to kill BB was tied to a baby

Former premier says she was worried about the baby getting dropped or hurt
* Considers herself lucky to have Zardari

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has said that the bomb attack on her homecoming procession was carried out by a man who was holding up a baby who was rigged up with explosives and whom he wanted her to hold.

Had she just at that moment not bent to loosen her shoes because of her swollen feet, she would have been dead, Benazir told the Washington Times.

Benazir was worried: According to the account published in the newspaper on Friday, a man approached her armoured truck, trying to hand across a small child. She gestured for the man to come closer. The child was about one or two. The man who was carrying it, kept trying to hand it to people to hand it to her. “I’m a mother, I love babies, but the (street lights) had already gone out, and I was worried about the baby getting dropped or hurt,” she said.

“The baby, the bomb, it went off only feet from me; there was nothing between us but the wall of the truck. We were rocking from side to side, this huge truck. We saw the bodies, the blood everywhere; we saw the carnage. Some bodies were naked, with their clothes burned off,” she added.

Lucky BB: Of her husband, Benazir said, “People say he is a liability, but they hit me by getting at him. I am very proud that he has stood by me; he stood his ground. He is a proud man, and he was humiliated. ... I don’t consider him a liability. I always think, what if he was not as brave as he turned out to be? What if he had listened to the army and divorced me? He could have chosen his business, you know. But he has paid a lot politically and personally. I am very lucky to have him. I think that people respect that he has stayed with me. If he had left, it would have been even worse.”
From the Daily Times