Some 20,000 airport security personnel, policemen and paramilitary personnel as well as bomb disposal squads have been deployed in Karachi to protect Bhutto, who is returning to Pakistan following secret parleys with President Prevez Musharraf for a power-sharing arrangement.
Bhutto, who was scheduled to go on a four-day trip to Dubai where her husband Asif Ali Zardari, her daughter and her mother currently live, was stopped at the international airport in Islamabad.
Almost all security measures agreed to by the government and the Pakistan People's Party for the homecoming of former premier Benazir Bhutto were compromised due to the massive turnout of her supporters.
A total of 127 people were killed when a Boeing 737-200 of Bhoja Air crashed a short distance from the international airport in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi, the second such accident in less than two years.
Pakistan has deported all 14 family members of Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, bringing an end to speculations about the fate of his family after the Al Qaeda chief's death in 2011. The family, escorted by a heavy contingent of security forces, boarded the chartered Saudi plane to Jeddah from the Benazir Bhutto International airport, where security had been increased manifold. The Saudi ambassador was also present at the airport.
Ailing virologist Khalil Chishti, detained in Rajasthan for nearly two decades on a charge of involvement in a murder, arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday after being given special permission by India's Supreme Court to return home to meet his family.
Weeping next of kin of the crash victims were doing the rounds from the wheat fields near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport where the bodies remained scattered to the capital's main hospital where coffins lined hallway.
The interior ministry has directed the Federal Investigation Agency that no government official or other VIPs would be given protocol at airports.
The PIA plane PK-661 with 48 people, including famous pop singer-turned-Islamic preacher Junaid Jamshed, his wife and Deputy Commissioner Chitral Osama Warraich, on board crashed on Wednesday in Saddha Batolni village near Havelian while en route to Islamabad from Chitral in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
An American national, who was blacklisted and deported from Pakistan in 2011 after he was allegedly caught spying on sensitive installations, has been arrested after he arrived at the airport in Islamabad.
Airport authorities in Islamabad, on Sunday, claimed to have deported Dean Jones because of an expired visa, but the former Australian batsman insisted that he had to return home because of incomplete documents.
Security has been beefed up across Pakistan to fend off a looming threat by Taliban to launch the "biggest attack" on some unspecified important installation, officials said on Monday.
The civil aviation authority confirmed that there are no survivors.
Malala was dressed in Pakistani salwar kameez and dupatta. She was smiling and looked happy as he was greeted at the airport.
A close aide of slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was among six militants killed in a United States drone attack in Pakistan's lawless tribal region 10 days ago, media reported on Tuesday.
Learning perhaps from the Kargil debacle, Musharraf tried hard to evolve as a statesman in his dealings with India, recalls Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Pakistan's former president Asif Ali Zardari has returned to the country, ending his 18-month-long self-imposed exile, amidst speculations about his future role in the Pakistan Peoples Party, which has threatened a major protest against the Nawaz Sharif government.
'Islamabad is only as big as a Delhi suburb.' 'How can a city with just two five star hotels and only one departure gate at their international airport be compared to Delhi with its sprawling airport?' Ambassador T P Sreenivasan finds the pulse of Pakistan after visiting Islamabad for the first time.
The plan hinged on two critical assumptions: India would not be able to replenish supplies quickly to launch a counter-attack. India could not respond in enough strength to dislodge the Pakistanis. Both assumptions would be proved wrong due to the ferocity of the Indian response, reveals former RAW officer Tilak Devasher in his new book, Pakistan At The Helm.
'Why has the rhetoric gone down on the Indian side, Durrani wondered aloud.' 'I said because almost total normalcy and peace had returned on the ground in Kashmir,' recalls Shekhar Gupta. 'The general gave me that career spook's laser look. And he said: "That situation on the ground can change in no time".' 'This was precisely when the Pakistanis began their first incursions into Kargil.' 'Durrani had been retired for five years.' 'But once the ISI boss, you are always in the know.'
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