Who Killed Benazir? (UpDated)

By Noah Shachtman
December 28, 2007 4:57:00 PM
Wired

Al-Qaeda has already claimed credit for the assassination of Benzair Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister. But this crime has plenty of suspects -- any combination of whom might have been working together. Here's a line-up of the potential killers...

* Al-Qaeda & Co. The Washington Post puts the terror group and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the "top of the list." Bin Laden and Bhutto were old foes. And the Pakistani government has certainly been quick to finger the jihadists. ''We have the evidence that al Qaeda and Taliban were behind the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto,'' Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told the AP.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said that on Friday, the government recorded an ''intelligence intercept'' in which militant leader Baitullah Mehsud "congratulated his people for carrying out this cowardly act.'' [The text of the call is here.]

Cheema described Mehsud as an ''al Qaeda leader'' [sorta] who was also behind the Karachi bomb blast against Bhutto in October that killed more than 140 people.

Mehsud is regarded as the commander of pro-Taliban forces in the lawless Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, where al Qaeda fighters are also active.

As noted yesterday, Bhutto recently said that "she had received a letter, signed by someone claiming to be a friend of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, threatening to slaughter her like a goat."

In a November 3 television interview, Bhutto herself said that her potential assassins Bhutto could have come from "a gang from the Afganistan warlord Baitullah Mehsud, or Hamza bin Laden the son of Osama bin Laden, or the Pakistani Taliban in Islamabad, or by a group in Karachi."

A senior intelligence source tells the Counterterrorism Blog, "While the general identity of the perpetrators is known (al-Qaeda), much of the specifics remain extremely elusive and will likely continue for the time being until more information comes out."

Moahamad Bazzi, of the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that under Bhutto, Pakistan played footsie with jihadists -- and helped them take over Afghanistan (more on that in a minute).

When Bhutto was forced out of office, she turned against Islamic extremists as she tried to cultivate new alliances with the West and portray herself as Pakistan’s only truly secular, democratic opposition leader.

The militants never forgave her.

* Pakistani Militants. A "former intelligence official with deep experience on Pakistan" whispers to TPM Muckraker that "there's [another], and perhaps more likely culprit: internally-focused Pakistani Islamist militants without significant links to al-Qaeda."

The ex-intel official doesn't have any ground truth. But, s/he says, the organizations with the most to gain and the least to lose by assassinating Bhutto are the groups "like Lashkar e-Toiba, or the Jaish e-Mohammed." Those groups' ties to al-Qaeda are much, much less than that of the Pakistani Taliban [some news reports say otherwise], and their focus is entirely domestic. "There are numerous groups that fit in the militant category whose focus began with Kashmir, but they oppose all U.S.-Pakistani relations and all secular politics," the official says. "They strongly disapprove of the role of Benazir, on every ground, and they have every reason to let Musharraf take the blame. They check every box."

During recent exchanges, Bhutto talked about de-emphasizing Pakistan's long-standing focus on wrestling Kashmir away from India. That wouldn't have exactly endeared her to group like Jaish-e-Mohammed.

* Pakistan's Spooks. "To say that 'al-Qaeda' is responsible for Bhutto's assassination -- suggesting Osama bin Laden and an external force -- is to ignore all those political and religious factions inside the country that had the motives and resources to kill the former prime minister," writes the Washington Post's William Arkin. "Some of those factions in the government, the military or the intelligence services were likely privy to Bhutto's movements, and they could have actively schemed, if not played a direct role, in getting the suicide attacker to the right place at the right time."

After the October attempt on her life, Bhutto's husband directly accused government's Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of being involved. "It is the work of the intelligence agencies," he said. Bhutto had talked about her desire to clean up the country's intelligence services. After all, the ISI has supported jihadists since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -- and it helped the Taliban take control of that country in the 1990s. Pakistan and its spies officially became American allies against the Taliban after 2001. But Afghan president Hamid Karzai, among others, says the ISI never fully changed sides. "Pakistani intelligence gives military training to people and then sends them to Afghanistan with logistics," he said last year. In autumn 2006, a leaked report by a British Defense Ministry think tank charged, “Indirectly Pakistan (through the ISI) has been supporting terrorism and extremism—whether in London on 7/7, or in Afghanistan, or Iraq.” See this excellent Council on Foreign Relations report for more.

* Rogue Commandos. The New York Sun hears from an American intelligence source, who says that "a working theory... is that Al Qaeda or affiliated jihadist groups had effectively suborned at least one unit of Pakistan's Special Services Group, the country's equivalent of Britain's elite SAS commandos. . . . 'They just killed the most protected politician in the whole country,' this source said. 'We really don't know a lot at this point, but the first thing that is happening is we are asking the Pakistani military to account for every black team with special operations capabilities.'" Many of the country's most spectacular terrorist plots have been centered in Rawalpindi, Pakistan's military headquarters. And junior officers have been implicated in many of those schemes.

* President Musharraf Himself. Not directly. But by keeping the security around Bhutto relatively loose, the Musharraf administration allowed attackers to get through. "I wld (sic) hold Musharraf responsible," Bhutto wrote to her US spokesman, Mark Siegel, in a message meant to be revealed in case of her death. "I have been made to feel insecure by his minions, and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or four police mobiles to cover all sides cld (sic) happen without him." Shortly before yesterday's hit on Bhutto, police allegedly "abandoned their security posts."

Of course, at this early stage, we don't have much more than speculation based on initial accounts -- many of which are turning out to be wrong. It was first reported that Bhutto died of gunshot wounds. Now, it appears, she was killed by bomb shrapnel. (Or maybe that's all a "pack of lies.")

And, of course, we may never find out who the real culprits were. As Terrorwonk notes...

A thorough investigation into a political murder would be a unique thing in Pakistani history. The October assassination attempt on Bhutto has not been thoroughly investigated – nor for that matter have the numerous assassination attempts on Musharraf. On October 16, 1951 Pakistan’s first Prime Minister was assassinated in Rawalpindi – in the same park where Bhutto was killed. Security forces immediately killed the assassin so little was gleaned about the plot. There remain unanswered questions about the deaths of Bhutto’s own brother Shahnawaz (poisoned in France in 1985) and Murtaza (who was shot by police in 1996.) There are ongoing suspicions that Benazir had a role in Murtaza’s death – suspicions held by other members of the Bhutto family.

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NOTE: The following reports were not part of the above article, but were independently included by me.

1. Al-Qaeda Denies Benazir Bhutto Killing

Article From: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Peshawar
December 29, 2007 06:16pm
Courtesy Of: The Herald Sun
News.com.au

AL-QAEDA linked Pakistani militant Baitullah Mehsud was not involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, his spokesman said.

"He had no involvement in this attack," Mehsud's spokesman Maulvi Omar said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

"This is a conspiracy of the Government, army and intelligence agencies," he said.

"I strongly deny it. Tribal people have their own customs. We don't strike women."

The Pakistan Government has claimed that Mehsud was responsible for Benazir Bhutto's killing as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said the Government yesterday recorded an "intelligence intercept" in which Mehsud "congratulated his people for carrying out this cowardly act".

Mr Cheema described Mehsud as an "al-Qaeda leader" and said he was also behind the October 18 bombing against Ms Bhutto's homecoming parade through Karachi that killed more than 140 people.

Mehsud is a commander of pro-Taliban forces in the lawless Pakistani tribal region South Waziristan, where al-Qaeda fighters are also active. His forces often attack Pakistani security forces.

He was recently quoted in a Pakistani newspaper as saying he would welcome Ms Bhutto's return from exile with suicide bombers. Mehsud later denied that in statements to local television and newspaper reporters.

Mr Cheema said Mehsud was "behind most of the recent terrorist attacks that have taken place in Pakistan".

Maulvi Omar said the transcript released by the Government, allegedly of a phone call between Mehsud and a militant discussing Bhutto's death after the fact, was a "drama".

He said it would have been "impossible" for militants to get through the security cordon around the campaign rally where she was killed.

"Benazir was not only a leader of Pakistan but also a leader of international fame. We express our deep grief and shock over her death," Maulvi Omar said. With Reuters


2. They Don’t Blame Al-Qa’ida. They Blame Musharraf.

By Robert Fisk
December 30, 2007
The Independent/UK
Zmag

Weird, isn’t it, how swiftly the narrative is laid down for us. Benazir Bhutto, the courageous leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, is assassinated in Rawalpindi - attached to the very capital of Islamabad wherein ex-General Pervez Musharraf lives - and we are told by George Bush that her murderers were “extremists” and “terrorists”. Well, you can’t dispute that.

But the implication of the Bush comment was that Islamists were behind the assassination. It was the Taliban madmen again, the al-Qa’ida spider who struck at this lone and brave woman who had dared to call for democracy in her country.

Of course, given the childish coverage of this appalling tragedy - and however corrupt Ms Bhutto may have been, let us be under no illusions that this brave lady is indeed a true martyr - it’s not surprising that the “good-versus-evil” donkey can be trotted out to explain the carnage in Rawalpindi.

...George Bush announced on Thursday he was “looking forward” to talking to his old friend Musharraf...

So, of course, we were asked to concentrate once more on all those ” extremists” and “terrorists”, not on the logic of questioning which many Pakistanis were feeling their way through in the aftermath of Benazir’s assassination.

It doesn’t, after all, take much to comprehend that the hated elections looming over Musharraf would probably be postponed indefinitely if his principal political opponent happened to be liquidated before polling day.

So let’s run through this logic in the way that Inspector Ian Blair might have done in his policeman’s notebook before he became the top cop in London.

Question: Who forced Benazir Bhutto to stay in London and tried to prevent her return to Pakistan? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who ordered the arrest of thousands of Benazir’s supporters this month? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who placed Benazir under temporary house arrest this month? Answer: General Musharraf.

Question: Who declared martial law this month? Answer General Musharraf.

Question: who killed Benazir Bhutto?

Er. Yes. Well quite.

You see the problem? Yesterday, our television warriors informed us the PPP members shouting that Musharraf was a “murderer” were complaining he had not provided sufficient security for Benazir. Wrong. They were shouting this because they believe he killed her.

Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent.