Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto blamed a suicide bombing that killed at least 136 people on unidentified ``minority militants'' and said the attack won't stop her from competing in parliamentary elections.

The assault on her convoy hours after she arrived yesterday in Pakistan represents ``an attack on democracy,'' the former prime minister told reporters in Karachi today. ``We will not be intimidated by these minority militants. We will not stop our campaign. We will not stop our struggle.''

The Pakistan Peoples Party leader, 54, returned to Karachi, her birthplace and Pakistan's largest city, to guide the party in the elections due by Jan. 15. No group has taken responsibility for the attack, the deadliest since President Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999.

Islamic militants had threatened to assassinate Bhutto on her return after eight years of self-imposed exile during which she faced corruption charges. In 1988, she became the first woman prime minister of a Muslim state. Bhutto holds a moderate view of Islam and maintains close contacts with the Bush administration, making her a potential target for extremists in the world's largest Muslim nation after Indonesia.

World leaders, Pakistani politicians and Musharraf called her to condemn the attack, she said. The government said the bombing won't prevent the elections.

`Road to Democracy'

``The elections will go ahead as planned and we will ensure the road to democracy isn't disrupted,'' Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem said in a telephone interview from the capital, Islamabad. ``If terrorists think they can derail the election process, they are wrong,'' he added.

Bhutto condemned the bombing as the ``dastardly and cowardly'' act of assassins. She also demanded an inquiry into why streetlights failed to come on, hampering her security guards' efforts to scan the crowds for attackers as darkness fell. Fifty of her guards died, said Bhutto, who was unhurt.

``Bhutto symbolizes everything that's anathema to the extremists,'' Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said in a telephone interview. ``They want a Taliban-like theocratic state in Pakistan and she stands for democracy, modernity and change.''

``The people who carried out the attacks were not Muslims. No Muslim can attack a woman,'' Bhutto said. ``The armed militants want to hurt Pakistan and they want to damage Islam.''

Concern for Houses

Bhutto told reporters in Karachi she knows which militants want to kill her, without identifying them, and that her houses in Karachi and Larkana may be targeted and require protection.

Earlier today, Paris Match quoted Bhutto as saying in an interview published on its Web site that her attackers were ``officials of the former regime of General Zia who are today behind extremism and fanaticism.''

``A good number of them went into retirement then were taken back,'' Bhutto told the magazine. ``Today they have a lot of power. For them, I represent a danger -- if I bring democracy back into the country, they will lose their influence.''

General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in a 1977 military coup and went on to become president in 1978. His dictatorship ended when he was killed in a plane crash in 1988. The elder Bhutto, founder of the PPP, was hanged in 1979 after his conviction on charges of authorizing the murder of an opponent.

The bomb attack on Benazir Bhutto injured at least 500 people among the thousands who lined the streets to welcome her home, ambulance officials said. A hand grenade was thrown first, distracting security forces, Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told Cable News Network, adding it was a ``professional'' attack.

Jamming Devices

Devices fitted to Bhutto's truck to jam a remote-controlled bomb were useless against a suicide attacker, GEO Television cited Manzoor Mughal, deputy inspector general of investigations for Karachi Police, as saying.

``The government had already warned Bhutto of terrorist attacks on her,'' Azeem, the deputy information minister, said. ``We provided her the maximum security but there is nothing foolproof.'' He said it was ``too early to call this an assassination attempt on Bhutto, but it appears from events that this might be the case.''

Bhutto, who lived in Dubai and London since 1999 to avoid allegations of misstating her wealth and taking kickbacks on state contracts, flew back to Pakistan after Musharraf agreed to drop corruption cases against her. The opposition leader held the post of prime minister twice between 1988 and 1996.

Corruption Cases

The ending of the corruption cases was intended as a prelude to a power-sharing deal between Bhutto and Musharraf. Bhutto returned to Pakistan before the resolution of a court case to determine whether the charges against her will be dropped. The Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 12 that an Oct. 5 law that ordered the charges abandoned must first be examined by the judges. The case was postponed for three weeks.

Bhutto's arrival follows the most serious opposition to Musharraf's rule since he seized power. He has tried to boost his position by seeking Bhutto's support.

``The first shot has been fired against a U.S.-sponsored plan to put together some kind of working arrangement between General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto,'' Farzana Shaikh, a Pakistan expert at Chatham House, a London-based consultant that advises European governments on foreign policy, said in a telephone interview today.

There is ``enormous disenchantment'' at the arrangement that has been seen as bypassing the electorate, Shaikh said. ``The U.S. has seriously got to understand the degree to which this deal was perceived as unjustified and unpopular.''

State Department

Allowing the attack to derail plans for the elections would be ``absolutely the wrong signal and the wrong message,'' U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters in Washington. ``That would be a way of letting the people responsible for those actions win.''

Musharraf also has ordered the Pakistani military to carry out operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda along the border with Afghanistan. Islamic parties oppose his support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism and staged protests when troops stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque in July, ending a challenge by clerics trying to impose Islamic law on the capital.

``The issue of elections hangs in the balance because the extremely insecure environment raises the question how the political parties will organize their election campaigns and rallies,'' Ishtiaq Ahmed, an associate professor in the international relations department at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, said in a telephone interview today.

Bhutto told Paris Match, ``Every time I announce my intention to hold a big political meeting, the government will from now on respond `there are suicide bombers in your meetings, the risk is too great.'''

Karachi, with a population of 14 million people, has been a center of political violence in Pakistan, with regular bomb attacks. Smoke was in the air today at the scene of the attack and the road was charred and littered with dozens of sandals and fragments of clothing.

To contact the reporters on this story: Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net; Farhan Sharif in Karachi at fsharif2@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: October 19, 2007 12:59 EDT