Newsweek: ALL CAMPAIGN ACTIVITY TO HALT AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

Suicide bombers of the Pakistani Taliban have fanned out across Pakistan to mount attacks on Election Day, May 11.

According to a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militant, the organization’s leader Hakimullah Mehsud has personally ordered bombings on polling day. “The Taliban has dispatched several [suicide bombers] to carry out attacks on Election Day,” he said on condition of anonymity. A letter, apparently sent from Mehsud to Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan, maps out the plan for the bombings. “You take care of attacks in Punjab and Sindh. I will take care of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” it says.

The Taliban have called democracy a “system of infidels.” They have also declared war on the three main parties—Pakistan Peoples Party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and Awami National Party—in the outgoing federal government. Militants have attacked the campaign offices of these parties as well as their candidates, on the campaign trail and in their homes. The attacks have claimed at least 113 lives since mid-April, according to an AFP count.

Pakistan has said it will deploy more than 600,000 security personnel on polling day. But while many expect polling in the Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, to be relatively peaceful, fear of attacks in the other three provinces may suppress voter turnout.

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