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Suicide attack kills 37 as Pak polls campaign ends

AFP, Parachlnar
A suicide car bomber struck a rally by slain Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto's party yesterday, killing 37 people and increasing security fears with just two days untilelections.
The blast in the northwestern tribal town of Parachinar bordering Afghanistan came on the final day of campaigning for Monday's polls and was the bloodiest in a series of attacks since Bhutto's murder in
December.
Security concerns over the elections have combined with allegations of widespread rigging to suck the life out of electioneering, widely seen as decisive for the future of key US ally President Pervez Musharraf.
"It was a suicide attack, there were people outside the candidate's house and they were waiting for food when this man attacked," interior minister Hamid Nawaz told AFP
"It is a very unfortunate incident. Maximum security measures are in place for the 17th and 18th (of February) and the campaign is going to end tonight," he added.
Thirty-seven people were killed and 93 wounded in the blast, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said, adding: "It was a vehicle-borne suicide attack "
Security officials earlier told AFP that the suicide bomber attacked a Pakistan People's Party meeting outside the office of local candidate Riaz Shah. Shafi's family said he was safe.
A man with long hair drove a car into thecrowd and blew himself up. There were bodies and blood everywhere," witness Laiq Hussain told AFP
Parachinar is just across the border from Tora Bora, an Afghan mountain range where US-led forces were believed to have cornered al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in late 2001 before he managed to escape.
In a separate incident in the nearby Bajaur tribal area militants blew up a polling station with a timebomb, police said.
Police in the southern city of Hyderabad meanwhile said they had arrested a suspected militant equipped with a suicide jacket and explosives who was planning an attack during the polls.
And in the southwestern city of , Quetta police Saturday fired tear gas and used batons to disperse a rally by the All Parties Democratic Movement, a coalition of opposition parties boycotting the elections, police said.
Saturday's attack on the PPP came as politicians launched a final push for votes before the midnight (1900 GMT) deadline after which all rallies are banned until after the landmark polls.
Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, met former premier Nawaz Sharif in Lahore for new talks on possible power-sharing after the vote if the opposition wins a majority, party officials said.
Opposition groups have accused Musharrafs administration of rigging the polls to head off possible impeachment if a hostile parliament is voted in.
Party officials said police arrested more than 30 political activists, including 24 PPP workers, in a crackdown in North West Frontier Province on Saturday.
But Musharraf was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan that he w.as "positive the polls would be fair".
"Inshallah (God willing) we will have a stable, democratically elected government ... we will ensure a successful fight against terrorism and extremism and we will ensure sustaining the eco-nomjc growth of Pakistan ."
Some 81,000 army and paramilitary soldiers have fanned out across the country to maintain peace and security during the election, chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.
Qaiser Tareen, commander of the paramilitary Punjab Rangers, said troops have been ordered to "shoot on sight" those who try to
hamper the voting or disrupt peace on election day.
In Washington, a senior US senator in a Congressional team travelling to monitor the polls said late Friday that the United States should "cut off aid to Pakistan, military aid” if the vote is not fair.
Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, who is head of the influential Senate foreign relations committee, also forecast riots throughout Pakistan if the elections were found to be "patently rigged."
A fresh row erupted over the fairness of the polls on Friday after Human Rights Watch said it had obtained a recording of Pakistan’s attorney-general predicting the vote will be "massively rigged. ’’
But Malik Qayyum. a close ally of Musharraf, denied making the comment.