Suicide attackers tried to kill a leading Pakistani politician today as members of Benazir Bhutto’s political party prepared for critical meetings on whether to boycott January 8 elections following her assassination.

Pakistan said today it did not need foreign assistance to investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, despite deepening controversy over how the former prime minister died and who killed her.

The first confirmed woman suicide bomber in Pakistan blew herself up without harming anyone else, officials said today.

A grim-faced Pervez Musharraf took leave from his fellow generals today, a day before quitting as army chief in a move that could ease Pakistan's political crisis.

Pakistan’s President Musharraf could quit as head of the army as soon as this weekend, an official said today.

Opposition parties in Pakistan were wavering today on a boycott of crucial elections.

More than 3,000 people jailed in Pakistan under emergency rule have been released in recent days, the Interior Ministry said today.

A public protest by Pakistan’s former premier Benazir Bhutto against emergency rule was stamped out before it could start by riot police today.

Lawyers for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif filed a petition in Pakistan’s Supreme Court today challenging his deportation to Saudi Arabia, setting up another confrontation between the judiciary and Pakistan’s military ruler as he battles to hold onto power.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif landed in Pakistan today on his return from exile to lead a campaign to topple the country’s US-allied military ruler who ousted him in a coup eight years ago.

A suspected suicide bombing killed at least 13 people and wounded 71 others today at a hotel near Islamabad’s Red Mosque, after religious students occupied the mosque and demanded the return of its pro-Taliban cleric.

A suspected suicide bombing today killed at least 11 people and wounded 43 others at a hotel near Islamabad’s Red Mosque, after religious students occupied the mosque and demanded the return of its pro-Taliban cleric.

Pakistani commandos cleared the warren-like Red Mosque complex of all defenders today, ending a bloody eight-day siege and street battles that left more than 60 dead.

Pakistani troops combed the warren-like Red Mosque complex for booby traps and any remaining militants today after storming the compound and killing its pro-Taliban cleric.

The chief cleric of the Red Mosque was killed today as troops were flushing out entrenched hold-outs inside a women’s religious school in room by room fighting, a Pakistan government spokesman said.

Several explosions were heard near a radical mosque besieged by security forces in the Pakistani capital Islamabad this morning.

The chief cleric of a radical mosque in Islamabad was arrested and more than 1,000 of his followers surrendered today as troops backed by armoured vehicles and helicopters tightened their siege of the complex, officials said.

Pakistan has told the US military that an Arab al-Qaida operative who masterminded the London jetliner terror plot is hiding in mountainous terrain in north-eastern Afghanistan, an intelligence official said today.

Three trains collided in a deadly chain-reaction after a conductor misread a signal in southern Pakistan, killing at least 107 people and wounding hundreds more in the country’s worst crash in more than a decade.

A Tanzanian al-Qaida suspect wanted by the United States for the 1998 bombings at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was giving “very valuable” information, Pakistan’s interior minister said today.

EXPLOSIVES stored in a house blew up yesterday, sending a huge fireball through a Pakistani village, killing at least 47 and injuring 150, reports said.

Pakistan today denied an Iranian radio report that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden had been captured.

At least 17 people were killed in central Pakistan today when fireworks caught fire and exploded as they were being loaded onto a truck.

Pakistan put its military and police on high alert today and stepped up security at diplomatic missions and churches after a grenade attack on a Protestant congregation killed five people.

Former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan has been deported to Afghanistan.