Sunday, January 13, 2008

Bhutto assassination tied more closely to Musharraf.

As more details are revealed about the assassination of Benizar Bhutto, it becomes clearer that it was an elaborately planned and well-executed operation involving a large group of people, inside knowledge of Bhutto's anticipated movements and sloppy security conducted by the Pakistan Peoples Party. McClatchy Newspapers provides a more detailed report on what has been learned.
By Saeed Shah and Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers

The assassination

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Two new reports on the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27 suggest that it may have been an ambitious plot rather than an isolated act of violence and that the government of President Pervez Musharraf knows far more than it's admitted.

A police officer who witnessed the assassination said a mysterious crowd stopped Bhutto's car that day, prompting her to emerge through the sunroof. And a document has surfaced in the Pakistani news media that contradicts the government's version of her death and contains details on the pistol and the suicide bomb used.

The witness was Ishtiaq Hussain Shah, deputy superintendent of the Rawalpindi police. As Bhutto's car headed onto Liaquat Road after an election rally in Rawalpindi, a crowd appeared from nowhere and stopped the motorcade, shouting slogans of her Pakistan Peoples Party and waving party banners, according to his account.

Bhutto emerged through the sunroof of the bulletproof car to wave.

Shah's job was to clear the way for the motorcade. But 10 feet from where he was standing, a man in the crowd wearing a jacket and sunglasses raised his arm and shot at Bhutto. "I jumped to overpower him," he said later. "A mighty explosion took place soon afterwards."

Shah suffered multiple injuries and is recuperating in a Rawalpindi military hospital, guarded by agents of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

Who organized the crowd is still a mystery. "I don't know who they were or from where they came," Shah told the Dawn newspaper. "They just appeared on the road."

The investigation

The second report emerged in the Pakistani media, with detailed information about the pistol and bomb. It rejects the government's conclusion that Bhutto died when the force of the suicide blast threw her head against the sunroof lever of her car. Such an impact couldn't have fractured her skull, it said. The government would not confirm the report's authenticity, but a security official verified it to McClatchy. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

According to the report, which the paper described as a "top agency" preliminary report, a Chinese Norinco pistol, lot number 311-90, was recovered from the scene. An MUV-2 triggering mechanism for the bomb was also found; the same kind of mechanism, with the same lot number and factory code, had been used in 15 previous suicide bombings in Pakistan. [Snip]

Bhutto's Security

Bhutto's own private-security arrangements seemed poor, chaotic and amateurish. Armored cars are not fitted with sunroofs. Hers was modified in Karachi against all safety advice, according to a security company that operates in that city but spoke only on condition of anonymity. After Bhutto's death, her husband made the startling revelation that she'd been guarded by men he'd met in prison.

Government involvement before and after

Although she had escaped a suicide bombing attack Oct. 18, the day she returned to Pakistan from self-imposed exile, there was no security cordon around Bhutto as she left the park in Rawalpindi. The crime scene was cleared immediately and hosed down, destroying vital evidence. Doctors at the hospital where she was taken announced the night it happened that she'd died of bullet wounds to the head and neck, but they changed their story the next day. There was no autopsy.

[Titles added - Editor WTF-o]
Even if Musharaff did not himself direct the assassination, it is clear that he and his government do not want the details of how it was conducted to be provided to the public or to the international community.

The two biggest questions right now are how much longer Musharaff will be President, and who will replace him.

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