Explosions went off near a convoy carrying former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Thursday as she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile. At least 108 people were reported killed in the blast. A reporter details the chaotic homecoming scene from Karachi.

Investigation of the Bombing Scene

MARGARET WARNER: And New Yorker magazine journalist and author Steve Coll also accompanied Mrs. Bhutto home, and he joins us by phone now from Karachi. ....

Steve, you just came from the scene. What's the latest?

STEVE COLL: About 100 or more dead and an estimated 200 or more wounded. Police and investigators are examining the site of what appear to have been two blasts carried out by dismounted suicide bombers. There was also evidence at the scene that rifle shots might have been fired at the truck that Benazir Bhutto was riding in at some time around the detonation of these two suicide bombs.

MARGARET WARNER: So how close did the bomb blasts come to Bhutto herself? Where was she when they went off?

STEVE COLL: Well, you've probably seen the pictures. She was riding in what was essentially a sort of three-story modified truck with a platform on top. The platform had a sort of VIP seat in the front, which was like a first-class airliner seat.

And surrounding that on three sides was bulletproof glass.This vehicle moved very slowly through a sea of Pakistan People's Party activists and other onlookers. And the first of the two blasts appeared to have been detonated about 10 to 20 yards behind and to the left of the vehicle.

I just came from Mrs. Bhutto's house, and one of her senior aides said as she was coming out that she believed that Mrs. Bhutto was actually in the rear of the vehicle at the time of the explosion, reviewing her speech that she intended to make at the end of her journey.

But I climbed up into the bus, which is disabled and now sitting in the street, and looked at this bulletproof glass. And while I'm not a forensic scientist, there seemed to be evidence of four gunshots into the glass from the same side of the vehicle that the bombs had gone off. ...

Threats May Be Linked to al-Qaida

MARGARET WARNER: And then who and where did the threats against her come from? And are authorities ready to say they were, in fact, the perpetrators in some fashion of this attack?

STEVE COLL: Well, there's nothing but speculation available now, but this attack is really consistent with dozens of similar attacks mounted by Taliban-influenced, or Taliban-allied, or al-Qaida-allied militant groups in Pakistan.

They are most active these days in the northwest and western frontier of the country, but increasingly they have been coming down to the cities and carrying out attacks against targets such as army units, civilian units, and also police, and apparently today against Benazir Bhutto. ...

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