Eight Air Force employees killed in Pakistan

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 1 (Agencies): A suicide bomber on a motorcycle rammed into a Pakistan Air Force bus Thursday, killing at least eight men and wounding about 40, the latest in a wave of attacks against the military, officials said. The bomber struck around 7 a.m. near an air base in Sargodha, about 125 miles south of the capital Islamabad, said air force spokesman Sarfraz Ahmed. Local police chief Hamid Mukhtar Gondal said the bus was destroyed and that investigators had collected body parts of the attacker.
Sahid Malik, an official at the air force's hospital in Sargodha, said the dead men were air force employees. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad called the attack "an act of terrorism."
The bombing came just two days after a suicide attacker blew himself up at a police checkpoint near the army office
of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi, a garrison city just south of the capital, killing seven.
There have been no claims of responsibility for this week's attacks, which have rattled a country wracked by a wave of Islamic militant violence.
Musharraf, a key U.S. ally, is under pressure from Washington to crack down pro-Taliban and al-Qaida militants hiding in the country's border regions near Afghanistan.
In the northwestern district of Swat, where recent clashes between security forces and supporters of a militant cleric have killed scores, fighting has resumed after a two-day lull.
An army helicopter attacked militants in the Sambad area of the mountainous region Wednesday after it came under fire. Eighteen militants were killed, including an aide to the hardline cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, said provincial home secretary Badshah Gul Wazir.
Early Thursday, militants attacked hilltop positions of security forces in the Khwaza Khela area, triggering a gunbattle, an official in the district's police control room said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists. There was no immediate word on casualties. Swat lies about 80 miles northwest of Islamabad.
Meanwhile: Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto said Wednesday she had postponed a planned trip to Dubai because of rumours that President Pervez Musharraf may impose a state of emergency.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan from eight years in self-exile on October 18. Hours later, her homecoming parade in the southern city of Karachi was targeted by a suicide bombing that killed 139 people.
"I have postponed my plans to go to Dubai to see my family and children after rumours and speculations about an emergency in Pakistan," Bhutto told a news conference at her home in Karachi. "I consulted with party officials and decided to stay," she said.
Bhutto said the emergency rumours were in connection with a Supreme Court decision expected later this week on whether military ruler Pervez Musharraf's victory in an October 6 presidential election was valid.
Musharraf, a key US ally who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, had pledged to step down as army chief by November 15 if he won the election but has not said what he would do if the court overturns his victory.
Bhutto said her decision to postpone her visit was "due to rumours of the possible imposition of an emergency in view of the pending cases before the Supreme Court about General Musharraf's elections."
There was no immediate reaction from the government on Bhutto's comments.
Musharraf nearly put Pakistan under a state of emergency in August amid a wave of Islamist violence and mounting political turmoil, including a bruising confrontation with Pakistan's chief justice.
The Karachi bombings have further raised the political temperature, and allegations by Bhutto have thrown into doubt a possible power-sharing deal between her and Musharraf.
Bhutto on Wednesday welcomed a move by chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to conduct an inquiry into the attacks, after the judge expressed impatience with the slow pace of the police investigation.