Karachi

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A body found in a shallow grave in the southern city of Karachi has been identified as that of Daniel Pearl, the American reporter who disappeared there in January, according to forensic evidence that U.S. officials are handing over to the Pakistani police, several officials said yesterday. Investigators had assumed that the body, which was discovered in May, was Pearl's, but results from DNA tests conducted then have not been made public. The results are expected to help prosecutors try other suspects in the kidnapping and killing of Pearl, 38, the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal.

A week after Malala Yousafzai was shot and gravely wounded by Taliban militants for insisting on the right of girls to get an education, the 14-year-old blogger and Internet activist has become a worldwide symbol of resistance to the extremist views of her attackers. Over the weekend, mass demonstrations in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan were called to demand the government crack down on Taliban operating in the Swat Valley near the border with Afghanistan, where Ms. Yousafzai lived.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan --A suicide bomber struck in the southern port city of Karachi yesterday, killing a prominent Shiite leader, his 10-year-old nephew and a security guard, officials and the local news media said. The attack came about 4:30 p.m. near the house of the Shiite leader and scholar, Allama Hassan Turabi. He was seriously wounded and died in a hospital an hour later, said Allama Furqan Haider Abidi, a colleague of Turabi's. Two police guards were also wounded, officials said.

KARACHI, Pakistan --Last month, as I approached the security checkpoints at John F. Kennedy International Airport, I was apprehensive of what security screening I would have to endure. Considering this was days after the Christmas Day terrorist attempt and that I was traveling to Pakistan, I braced myself for the worst, including a full pat-down and a thorough search of my luggage. Instead, after a short line in the screening area and a brief walk through a metal detector, I was allowed to enter my terminal.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- By foot, bus and bicycle, thousands of fervent followers of Benazir Bhutto converged yesterday on Karachi, preparing to welcome the former prime minister home today after eight years in exile. Bhutto's expected return to this sprawling, chaotic port city adds a complex new dimension to Gen. Pervez Musharraf's months-long struggle to retain his presidential powers. Bhutto and the general have reached agreement on some elements of a power-sharing alliance, but deep mistrust persists on both sides.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- At least 47 people were killed and more than 100 injured yesterday when a bomber blew himself up in the port city of Karachi at a gathering to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, authorities said. The deadly blast struck during an outdoor evening prayer service at a Karachi park. Afterward, angry mobs lashed out at security forces, setting dozens of vehicles ablaze, including ambulances and fire trucks, and also damaging two cinemas. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

WASHINGTON -- Federal counterterrorism officials said that they had no hard evidence to link the killing of four Americans in Karachi yesterday to a Pakistani immigrant's conviction, 28 hours earlier, on charges of murdering two CIA employees in 1993.But suspicion was strong enough that the FBI dispatched a team of agents to Karachi. Their orders are to gather evidence, not to conduct a full-scale terrorism investigation, because Attorney General Janet Reno has not certified that the slaying of the four men and their Pakistani driver was an act of terrorism.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A day after political clashes claimed 39 lives in Karachi, analysts said the violence -- and accusations that the government had done little to stop the killings -- had put renewed pressure on the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. News reports said government troops had been in the southern port city but had not acted to separate armed pro-government and opposition groups who were shooting at each other. Dawn, an English-language newspaper in Karachi, said troops had "suddenly disappeared from the troubled spots."

-Last month, as I approached the security checkpoints at John F. Kennedy International Airport, I was apprehensive of what security screening I would have to endure. Considering this was days after the Christmas Day terrorist attempt and that I was traveling to Pakistan, I braced myself for the worst, including a full pat-down and a thorough search of my luggage. Instead, after a short line in the screening area and a brief walk through a metal detector, I was allowed to enter my terminal.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto made her first public foray yesterday since a deadly attack Thursday on her homecoming celebration, signaling that she will not be deterred from mingling with supporters as her party begins its parliamentary election campaign. But her visits, to a Karachi hospital where many of those wounded in Thursday's suicide bombing were being treated and afterward to a Sufi shrine for prayers, were brief, unannounced and tightly controlled, in contrast to the carnival-like, open-air procession that preceded the attack.

I interviewed Benazir Bhutto just a month before she returned to Pakistan in October after almost 10 years in exile. I'd known her for years, on and off - mostly off - since we'd been in college together, and her brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, had been a good friend of mine there too. To be a Bhutto seemed - to us outsiders - the essence of glamorous progressivism. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, their father, was the democratically inclined president of Pakistan, and we thought of the Bhutto family as Pakistan's Kennedys.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto made her first public foray yesterday since a deadly attack Thursday on her homecoming celebration, signaling that she will not be deterred from mingling with supporters as her party begins its parliamentary election campaign. But her visits, to a Karachi hospital where many of those wounded in Thursday's suicide bombing were being treated and afterward to a Sufi shrine for prayers, were brief, unannounced and tightly controlled, in contrast to the carnival-like, open-air procession that preceded the attack.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Authorities sifting through clues in the devastating bombing of Benazir Bhutto's homecoming procession questioned three men yesterday, a source close to the investigation said. The police and Bhutto's associates acknowledged, however, that the list of groups and individuals who might have an interest in harming the pro-Western former prime minister was a long one. Police circulated a sketch of a man they believed blew himself up only a few feet from the former leader's armored vehicle Thursday, killing at least 136 people and injuring hundreds of others, as she returned from eight years of self-imposed exile.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- A defiant Benazir Bhutto donned a black armband yesterday and vowed not to be deterred from her quest to bring civilian rule to Pakistan after a suicide attack on her homecoming celebration killed up to 136 supporters. Some Pakistanis questioned whether the former prime minister had jeopardized the safety of her followers by riding in a slow-moving convoy through streets choked with adoring supporters, particularly in light of death threats made against her by Islamic militants.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- By foot, bus and bicycle, thousands of fervent followers of Benazir Bhutto converged yesterday on Karachi, preparing to welcome the former prime minister home today after eight years in exile. Bhutto's expected return to this sprawling, chaotic port city adds a complex new dimension to Gen. Pervez Musharraf's months-long struggle to retain his presidential powers. Bhutto and the general have reached agreement on some elements of a power-sharing alliance, but deep mistrust persists on both sides.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A day after political clashes claimed 39 lives in Karachi, analysts said the violence -- and accusations that the government had done little to stop the killings -- had put renewed pressure on the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. News reports said government troops had been in the southern port city but had not acted to separate armed pro-government and opposition groups who were shooting at each other. Dawn, an English-language newspaper in Karachi, said troops had "suddenly disappeared from the troubled spots."