Karachi is New York (Update)
Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was scheduled to address the Sindh High Court Bar Association today on on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of that court. Recall, the Chief Justice of Pakistan was removed from office nine weeks ago without cause, and attacks on lawyers by "the forces of order" started the next day. Click on this link to take you back to March 12th. Further reading is there for you if you're interested in the western province of Baluchistan on the Iranian border, and in the tribal agencies of North and South Wazirstan on the Afghan border, or in the lack of transparency in what is a military dictatorship dressed up as a pluralistic democracy, coincidently both a Bush GWOT property and has an inventory of 30-50 uranium-based, and 3-5 plutonium-based nuclear devices, already weaponized and operationally managed by a problematic command structure lacking secure launch authority, and historically "leaking" proliferation technology in a variety of directions.
The Sindh Home Secretary wrote the Chief Justice requesting he postpone his Karachi visit, citing intelligence reports indicating a threat of a terrorist attack. The Sindh High Court in turn ordered the Sindh government to provide security and allow the Chief Justice to address the Bar Association.
That was the situation last night when the Pakistan Dawn went to bed last night.
The form of the terrorist attack was a counter-rally by the pro-Musharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which runs Karachi, and nothing else. At least 50 people have been shot in Karachi today, a third of them fatally, most of them members of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistani People's Party (secular) and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a (non-secular) opposition alliance.
Reuters reports that local camera crews were able to film roadblocks and attacks by the AK-47 armed MQM gunmen, including footage of the wounded and dying. The Hindu press in India has similar reporting.
And how does the political party that controls the largest city in the country, and which has blocked all roads connecting the airport, with overturned trucks, buses and so on, where the Chief Justice is stuck?
Its mourning the "martyrs who were killed during the firing on the MQM's peaceful rally by the armed terrorists".
What do the Bushies call the Musharraf regime? Our firm ally or something equally loopy? And the MSM was created by the ISI just to keep Benazir Bhutto out of power.
Update: The number of killed by gunshot is now 34, and overwhelmingly they were members of the PPP and allied opposition parties, and not MQM. Numbers when I have them, and yes, it was state-sponsored.