Pakistani president says troops to shoot anyone disrupting elections

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
President Pervez Musharraf said he has ordered troops to shoot anyone attempting to disrupt next month's elections, which Western nations hope will help bring stability to Pakistan as it battles rising attacks by Islamic militants. A spasm of violence Monday underscored the challenges facing the nation. Troops and militants clashed near the Afghan border, leaving 30 dead. Separately, a bomb killed at least nine people and wounded 52 Monday in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi. Arif Ahmed Khan, a top government official in Karachi, said Tuesday that forensic evidence has been collected from the scene of the bombing outside a textile factory, but "it was too early to say who was behind it or give any motive." The parliamentary elections were delayed six weeks until February 18 amid violent chaos that followed the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on December 27 in a gun and suicide bomb attack that the government blamed on Muslim extremists.