Shots were fired at Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's motorcade near Islamabad's airport on Wednesday just as he was arriving in the capital city after delivering a rousing speech in Lahore in support of Asif Zardari, co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), ahead of presidential elections on Saturday. Officials and police said Gilani was not in the car at the time. “The car was going towards the airport when it was fired upon from a small hill ... two bullets hit the driver's window,” senior police official Rao Mohammad Iqbal said. Information Minister Sherry Rehman told state TV: “Those who had designs, have failed.” Earlier, the prime minister's spokesman, Zahid Bashir, said shots were fired at Gilani's motorcade but he was not hurt. “The prime minister is safe, by the grace of God,” Bashir said. The shooting in Rawalpindi, the garrison town home to Pakistan military headquarters, represents a major lapse in security. In December former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed at an election rally in Rawalpindi. The government said Al-Qaeda-linked militants killed her. Bhutto's party went on to win the Feb. 18 election and senior PPP member Gilani became prime minister of a coalition government. Suspicion for the attack will fall on Pakistani Taleban and their Al-Qaeda allies, who have unleashed a wave of bomb attacks, including some on political leaders such as Bhutto, over the past year.
