By Zeeshan Haider ISLAMABAD, Feb 13 (Reuters) - A bomb tore through an election campaign convoy in Pakistan on Wednesday killing two people and the United States said it was concerned about intensifying violence in the run-up to the Feb. 18 election. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told lawmakers in Washington she believed Pakistan's leaders understood there needed to be confidence in the election, delayed from Jan. 8 after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and bomb suicide attack on Dec. 27. "It is not going to be easy. We all are concerned about the potential for violence. We are all concerned, of course, about the potential that at least there will be pockets where there may be problems with the elections," Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Feb. 18 poll is meant to complete a transition to civilian rule in Pakistan. A low turnout is widely expected because of the violence. The United States, which Rice said wanted more "moderate voices" in government, and others are increasingly uneasy at the prospect of instability in a nuclear-armed Muslim state, that is fighting militants linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Washington and others are pressing for Pakistan's new government to be more inclusive of moderate leaders and the United States had been pushing Bhutto to form a partnership with President Pervez Musharraf before her death. Pakistani police probing the assassination of Bhutto said on Wednesday they had made a "major breakthrough" when two Islamist militants arrested last week confessed to giving her attacker a pistol and suicide vest. "They have confessed that they gave a suicide jacket and a pistol to the bomber," Deputy Inspector General Chaudhry Abdul Majeed told reporters. "It's a major breakthrough. Their confession is a major piece of evidence in the case," he said. The government has blamed Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban militant chief with al Qaeda links based on the Afghan border, for the attack on Bhutto and others across the country. But Mehsud's spokesman, Maulvi Omar, told Reuters on Wednesday the Pakistani Taliban group have decided not to attack next week's general election and that their men would not be involved in any attack before or on election day. He has also denied Mehsud's involvement in Bhutto's assassination. A recent poll conducted by Gallup Pakistan found almost half of all Pakistanis believe government agencies or politicians allied to Musharraf were involved in the assassination. Musharraf, who took power in a coup in 1999, imposed emergency rule in November and some limits on civil rights are in effect despite a formal end to the crackdown in December. The Interior Ministry has asked politicians to avoid unnecessary exposure in the run-up to the vote, keep travel plans unpredictable and avoid big rallies. MILITARY DEPLOYMENT An Interior Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that soldiers were being deployed to support police and paramilitary forces where needed. Musharraf has said troops have orders to shoot anyone trying to disrupt polls. In the latest violence that killed two, police said Mufti Hussain Ahmed, an independent candidate contesting a provincial assembly seat, was among three wounded in the blast in the northwestern Swat valley where hundreds of pro-Taliban militants have been killed in clashes with troops in recent months. Nine people, including four journalists, were wounded on Tuesday in southwestern Baluchistan in an explosion outside an election office of another independent candidate. Two suicide bomb attacks on election rallies in different parts of northwest Pakistan have killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 30 in the last week alone. Electioneering in his home province of Punjab on Wednesday, former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif derided his old foe Musharraf as a lackey of the United States. Sharif was allowed to return from exile in November thanks to pressure on Musharraf from Saudi King Abdullah. "He does not care about Pakistan, he cares about America," Sharif told a rally of about 5,000 people in Chakwal district, around 65 km (40 miles) southeast of the capital Islamabad. Sharif is barred from running in next Monday's election due to criminal convictions handed down after he was ousted by the takeover that brought Musharraf to power. In the past, Sharif used his position in the middle ground to cultivate appeal among religious conservatives and has not spoken out as strongly as Bhutto against Islamist militants. Bhutto's assassination created a wave of sympathy that is expected to help her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) emerge as the largest party in the National Assembly after the vote. It is not a presidential election, but the outcome could be vital to Musharraf's future. "Once the elections are over, the key is going to be to bring about a government that can again inspire, that there are a wide range of moderate voices that have been integrated into it," said Rice, without expanding further. Sharif's party is campaigning to restore judges removed by Musharraf in November, when he imposed emergency rule for six weeks to secure his own re-election. It is expected to make gains at the expense of a pro-Musharraf party, but it cannot win. (Writing by Augustine Anthony, Simon Cameron-Moore, Sue Pleming, Simon Gardner and Peter Millership) (for a Reuters blog about Pakistan please see: http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/)
Pakistani policemen guard Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's election rally in Chakwal some 150 km (93 miles) south of Islamabad February 13, 2008. Electioneering in his home province of Punjab ...
