Karachi

Most people in Pakistan support Gen. Musharraf's decision to partake in the war against terrorism; it's the loud religious minority that's taken to the streets in protest. Life is anything but normal. The streets of all the major cities have an eerie look. Everyone is wary of the 2 million Afghani refugees that are a part of society. Mian Akhar, a small trader, told me, "It's the actions of these Afghanis that scare me the most; they can at any time start terrorism here, in our very homes, and we will be helpless in our own country.

KARACHI, Pakistan - Pakistani forces regained control Saturday over trouble spots in the nation's largest city, where five days of political and ethnic violence killed at least 93 people and forced many to stay at home in fear, an official said. The fighting in Karachi, a sprawling southern port city of 18 million people, has added to the political instability in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied nation and provided another distraction for the government as it fights a Taliban-led insurgent movement.

President Bush will spend tonight in Pakistan as planned, despite security concerns underscored yesterday when a suicide car bomber killed an American diplomat and three others in Karachi. "Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," Bush said at a news conference in India, where he signed a nuclear agreement and laid a wreath at a memorial to Mohandas Gandhi. The Karachi attack blew out windows at the U.S. Consulate and the nearby Marriott hotel and killed David Foy, 51, the consulate's facilities manager; his driver; a guard who tried to prevent the attack; and an unidentified woman.

ISLAMABAD - A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden car rammed into the house of a senior counterterrorism police official yesterday in the southern city of Karachi, killing eight people but not the officer who was the apparent target, officials said. A woman and her 8-year-old son who were on their way to a nearby school were among those killed when the bomb struck the house of Chaudhry Aslam, a senior officer in the counterterrorism branch of the Karachi police. Also killed were six of Aslam's bodyguards.

LAHORE, Pakistan - It was barely 4 a.m. when 19-year-old Rinkal Kumari disappeared from her home in a small village in Pakistan's southern Sindh province. When her parents awoke, they found only her slippers and a scarf outside the door. A few hours later her father got a call telling him that his daughter, a Hindu, had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim boy. Only days later, Seema Bibi, a Christian woman in the province of Punjab, was kidnapped along with her four children after her husband couldn't repay a loan to a large landlord.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Taliban extremists in Pakistan extended their campaign of violence Thursday against the country's security forces, targeting the navy for the third time this week with a bombing that killed five in the southern city of Karachi. A roadside bomb blasted a bus that was carrying naval personnel, killing four people in the vehicle, along with a passing motorcyclist, officials said; at least five people were wounded. On Tuesday two naval buses in different parts of the city were bombed in almost identical attacks, killing four people and wounding 56. The Pakistani Taliban, which is closely allied with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for all the blasts.

A Pan American jumbo jet with hundreds of passengers aboard was seized on the ground at Karachi airport early today by four uniformed men who fired shots in the air and then stormed the plane, demanding to be flown to Cyprus, officials said. Four people were reported to have been wounded in the seizure - one aboard the jet and three outside. There also were reports that gunshots had been heard from inside the plane. The American cockpit crew escaped at the first sound of gunfire, and the gunmen were demanding the crew's return.

Bombs exploded outside four airline offices here after they closed last night, killing one person and wounding at least four people, in a series of attacks that appeared aimed at Saudi Arabia, police said. Pakistani officials said one of the explosions killed a guard outside what they said was a Pan American World Airways office in a Karachi hotel lobby, but Pan Am officials in New York said their office in Karachi was in another hotel. There appeared to be no question, though, that the other explosions took place outside three offices of Saudia Airlines, the national airline of Saudi Arabia.

The death toll from the seizure of a Pan Am airliner at the Karachi airport rose to 20 yesterday as controversy over the violent end to the siege continued and police searched for accomplices. Karachi hospital spokesmen said four more people had died of wounds received when the four Arab hijackers began spraying bullets around the darkened Boeing 747 on Friday. They listed the dead as 13 Indians, two Americans, two Pakistanis and one Mexican, with two bodies still unidentified.

Police disarmed an explosives-filled van yesterday outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, two days before a scheduled visit to Pakistan by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. No one claimed responsibility for the van. Islamic militants, however, have targeted Westerners since President Pervez Musharraf's government threw its support behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Musharraf, speaking yesterday in Peshawar, said a Libyan linked to al-Qaeda was responsible for two assassination attempts against him in December, though he did not name the suspect.

One year after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the most familiar image from the event is not of the dead man, but of the people who ordered the raid: President Obama and his closest advisers, watching via satellite in the White House "situation room" as the operation was unfolding thousands of miles away. Such depictions suggest an American victory. But if Americans were presented with a picture of war that went beyond its reflection on American faces to include its impact on Pakistani lives, they would see a reality that would alarm them.

LAHORE, Pakistan - It was barely 4 a.m. when 19-year-old Rinkal Kumari disappeared from her home in a small village in Pakistan's southern Sindh province. When her parents awoke, they found only her slippers and a scarf outside the door. A few hours later her father got a call telling him that his daughter, a Hindu, had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim boy. Only days later, Seema Bibi, a Christian woman in the province of Punjab, was kidnapped along with her four children after her husband couldn't repay a loan to a large landlord.

KARACHI, Pakistan - Iran and Pakistan are negotiating a barter deal in which Pakistan would supply up to 22 million tons of wheat in return for discounted electricity and petroleum products, Pakistani business leaders involved in the talks said. The proposal is part of a broader trade package being pursued by the neighboring states as Iran scrambles to find new suppliers to replace trading partners scared away by U.S. sanctions. While Iran and Pakistan have not been major trading partners historically, economic ties between the two nations are growing stronger - particularly with the construction of a pipeline to carry Iranian natural gas to energy-starved Pakistan, a project scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014.

Police in Brazil seize Rio slum Police backed by seven tanks and helicopters charged into Rio de Janeiro's biggest slum Sunday to take control from drug traffickers as part of the battle to secure the Brazilian city before it hosts the 2016 Olympic Games. A 3,000-strong security force faced no resistance as it advanced into Rocinha, a maze of dwellings that house an estimated 100,000 people on a hillside overlooking some of Rio's wealthiest communities. Neighboring areas of Vidigal and Chacara do Ceu were also occupied.

KARACHI, Pakistan - He owns a single set of clothing and often sleeps in a storage room - even though millions of dollars pass through his hands annually. At 83, creature comforts don't matter much to Abdul Sattar Edhi. He is too busy caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, burying the dead. Known to some as Pakistan's Mother Teresa, Edhi is a humanitarian light in a violent and troubled land. The vast majority here struggle daily in a moribund economy. Natural disasters are common.

On Sept. 12, 2001, a day after the terrorist attacks on American soil and a few short weeks before NATO forces unleashed firepower on Afghanistan in retaliation, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to ask if his country was with the United States or against it. The call - which Musharraf heard as an ultimatum - altered the course of Pakistan, Afghanistan's neighbor. Looking back, Ayesha Siddiqa, a civilian military scientist and political commentator in Pakistan, thinks the decade has been "tragic and lost years" for her country.

ISLAMABAD - A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden car rammed into the house of a senior counterterrorism police official yesterday in the southern city of Karachi, killing eight people but not the officer who was the apparent target, officials said. A woman and her 8-year-old son who were on their way to a nearby school were among those killed when the bomb struck the house of Chaudhry Aslam, a senior officer in the counterterrorism branch of the Karachi police. Also killed were six of Aslam's bodyguards.

KARACHI, Pakistan - Pakistani forces regained control Saturday over trouble spots in the nation's largest city, where five days of political and ethnic violence killed at least 93 people and forced many to stay at home in fear, an official said. The fighting in Karachi, a sprawling southern port city of 18 million people, has added to the political instability in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied nation and provided another distraction for the government as it fights a Taliban-led insurgent movement.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Taliban extremists in Pakistan extended their campaign of violence Thursday against the country's security forces, targeting the navy for the third time this week with a bombing that killed five in the southern city of Karachi. A roadside bomb blasted a bus that was carrying naval personnel, killing four people in the vehicle, along with a passing motorcyclist, officials said; at least five people were wounded. On Tuesday two naval buses in different parts of the city were bombed in almost identical attacks, killing four people and wounding 56. The Pakistani Taliban, which is closely allied with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for all the blasts.

Eight-hundred seventy-five thousand homes washed away or badly damaged. Twenty million people displaced. Monsoon rains that swelled the mile-wide Indus River to 12 miles in places. Disease and famine that will last for months. The worst floods in Pakistan's history have done damage of immense proportions, necessitating an international relief effort of equal scope, says Zaheer Chaudhry, a Bryn Mawr dentist who, along with three friends, is sponsoring a fund-raising dinner Saturday in Villanova to aid victims of the raging waters.