Former Prime Minister Of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, Assassinated

[Gold9472]

mmhmmmm...

[Gold9472]

CIA Places Blame for Bhutto Assassination
Hayden Cites Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Fighters

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 18, 2008; Page A01

The CIA has concluded that members of al-Qaeda and allies of Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud were responsible for last month's assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and that they also stand behind a new wave of violence threatening that country's stability, the agency's director, Michael V. Hayden, said in an interview.

Offering the most definitive public assessment by a U.S. intelligence official, Hayden said Bhutto was killed by fighters allied with Mehsud, a tribal leader in northwestern Pakistan, with support from al-Qaeda's terrorist network. That view mirrors the Pakistani government's assertions.

The same alliance between local and international terrorists poses a grave risk to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, Hayden said in 45-minute interview with The Washington Post. "What you see is, I think, a change in the character of what's going on there," he said. "You've got this nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between al-Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups."

Hayden added, "It is clear that their intention is to continue to try to do harm to the Pakistani state as it currently exists."

Days after Bhutto's Dec. 27 assassination in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistani officials released intercepted communications between Mehsud and his supporters in which the tribal leader praised the killing and, according to the officials, appeared to take credit for it. Pakistani and U.S. officials have declined to comment on the origin of that intercept, but the administration has until now been cautious about publicly embracing the Pakistani assessment.

Many Pakistanis have voiced suspicions that Musharraf's government played a role in Bhutto's assassination, and Bhutto's family has alleged a wide conspiracy involving government officials. Hayden declined to discuss the intelligence behind the CIA's assessment, which is at odds with that view and supports Musharraf's assertions.

"This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Hayden said. He described the killing as "part of an organized campaign" that has included suicide bombings and other attacks on Pakistani leaders.

Some administration officials outside the agency who deal with Pakistani issues were less conclusive, with one calling the assertion "a very good assumption."

One of the officials said there was no "incontrovertible" evidence to prove or rebut the assessment.

Hayden made his statement shortly before a series of attacks occurred this week on Pakistani political figures and army units. Pakistani officials have blamed them on Mehsud's forces and other militants. On Wednesday, a group of several hundred insurgents overran a military outpost in the province of South Waziristan, killing 22 government paramilitary troops. The daring daylight raid was carried out by rebels loyal to Mehsud, Pakistani authorities said.

For more than a year, U.S. officials have been nervously watching as al-Qaeda rebuilt its infrastructure in the rugged tribal regions along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, often with the help of local sympathizers.

In recent months, U.S. intelligence officials have said, the relationship between al-Qaeda and local insurgents has been strengthened by a common antipathy toward the pro-Western Musharraf government. The groups now share resources and training facilities and sometimes even plan attacks together, they said.

"We've always viewed that to be an ultimate danger to the United States," Hayden said, "but now it appears that it is a serious base of danger to the current well-being of Pakistan."

Hayden's anxieties about Pakistan's stability are echoed by other U.S. officials who have visited Pakistan since Bhutto's assassination. White House, intelligence and Defense Department officials have held a series of meetings to discuss U.S. options in the event that the current crisis deepens, including the possibility of covert action involving Special Forces.

Hayden declined to comment on the policy meetings but said that the CIA already was heavily engaged in the region and has not shifted its officers or changed its operations significantly since the crisis began.

"The Afghan-Pakistan border region has been an area of focus for this agency since about 11 o'clock in the morning of September 11, [2001], and I really mean this," Hayden said. "We haven't done a whole lot of retooling there in the last one week, one month, three months, six months and so on. This has been up there among our very highest priorities."

Hayden said that the United States has "not had a better partner in the war on terrorism than the Pakistanis." The turmoil of the past few weeks has only deepened that cooperation, he said, by highlighting "what are now even more clearly mutual and common interests."

Hayden also acknowledged the difficulties -- diplomatic and practical -- involved in helping combat extremism in a country divided by ethnic, religious and cultural allegiances. "This looks simpler the further away you get from it," he said. "And the closer you get to it, geography, history, culture all begin to intertwine and make it more complex."

Regarding the public controversy over the CIA's harsh interrogation of detainees at secret prisons, Hayden reiterated previous agency statements that lives were saved and attacks were prevented as a result of those interrogations.

He said he does not support proposals, put forward by some lawmakers in recent weeks, to require the CIA to abide by the Army Field Manual in conducting interrogations. The manual, adopted by the Defense Department, prohibits the use of many aggressive methods, including a simulated-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

"I would offer my professional judgment that that will make us less capable in gaining the information we need," he said.

[Gold9472]

Intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic question al Qaeda role in Bhutto killing
Scotland Yard says they’re not investigating assassin

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Intell...s_of_0118.html

Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Friday January 18, 2008

The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last December may never be solved, because Pakistani officials refused to demand an autopsy and hosed away evidence at the scene of her killing.

Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, President Bush, CIA Director Michael Hayden, and news reports have all claimed that al Qaeda was responsible. However, some current and former US and British intelligence officials now say the evidence points instead to Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Agency (ISI), the country’s security services.

Moreover, both Scotland Yard and a spokesman for MI6 told RAW STORY this week that British investigators are not examining the question of who killed Benazir Bhutto. They were only charged with identifying the cause of her death.

“The investigation is primarily a matter for the Pakistan authorities,” said Nev Johnson, the Press Officer for the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, which oversees security and the MI6 intelligence service.

Bhutto, the leader of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party, was shot in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on Dec. 27, 2007. Following her death, a bomb detonated, killing 25 people.

Almost immediately, differences emerged in the official story of her death, with a Musharraf spokesman saying she had been killed as a result of hitting her head against a lever on the sunroof of her bulletproof LandRover.

In a 45-minute interview given exclusively to the Washington Post Friday, CIA Director Hayden blamed members of al Qaeda and Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani tribal leader.

However, when asked about the allegations that Mehsud, and thus al Qaeda, is behind the assassination, one former high-ranking CIA case officer replied, “That is total bullshit.”

“Mehsud is an ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] asset. It is ridiculous to think he acted unilaterally. What [the Pakistanis] have [as evidence] is an intercepted conversation, but it is not conclusive that Mehsud is speaking or that he is admitting a role in the assassination. There is some sort of congratulations, but that call could have been made at any time about any topic.”

Another US intelligence source said that it would be impossible to determine who was behind the attacks because the crime scene was “hosed down and there was no autopsy.”

The role of Scotland Yard
Pakistani President Musharraf initially declined the serves of the famed Metropolitan Police Services (MPS) – or, as they are more commonly known, Scotland Yard – when they were offered by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown However, with public pressure mounting, Musharraf agreed. The MPS team, which arrived in Pakistan Jan. 3, concluded Thursday that Bhutto was killed by a bullet wound to the head.

US intelligence officials were concerned from the outset that the MPS investigation would be limited and kept in line with the official Musharraf position, because of the delicate diplomatic relationship that both Britain and the US have with Pakistan. Musharraf has publicly stated that Taliban tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud was the mastermind of the attack and that Mehsud's close relationship to al Qaeda implicates the terrorist group.

A current US official, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the subject, told RAW STORY Wednesday that “[Mehsud] is not formally part of the Taliban or al Qaeda, but he’s linked to both, and it is, at times, difficult to say where one organization ends and the other begins.”

Sources close to Scotland Yard say their role is not to identify who killed Mrs. Bhutto, but only to determine how she was killed. According to British intelligence, they are not directing their investigation to point to any single group or person.

Reached early Thursday, a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said that the role of MPS investigators is to “assist the local authorities” in Pakistan.

"At the request of the Pakistan Government, New Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) [has deployed] a team of investigators to support the Pakistan Law Enforcement Agencies responsible for investigating the death of Benazir Bhutto,” the spokeswoman said.

“The principal purpose of the SO15 deployment is to assist the local authorities in providing clarity regarding the precise cause of Ms Bhutto's death… The primacy and responsibility for the investigation remains with the Pakistan authorities.”

Asked about recent news reports that Scotland Yard investigators have concluded al Qaeda was behind the murder of Mrs. Bhutto, Nev Johnson, the Press Officer for the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office said that “as the investigation is still underway, it would not be appropriate for the Metropolitan Police to comment. The same thing applies to the FCO.”

“The investigation is primarily a matter for the Pakistan authorities,” he added.

While neither the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office nor Scotland Yard is publicly discussing the investigation, someone appears to be leaking information suggesting that al Qaeda is behind the assassination of Mrs. Bhutto. A recent article, “Scotland Yard believes al Qaeda assassinated Benazir Bhutto,” claims that Mehsud had associations with al Qaeda but quotes no one from the service actually fingering al Qaeda in the attack.

US intelligence officials and some foreign intelligence officers are concerned that leaking anything about the case could ignite a firestorm in the region. Some privately take issue with Scotland Yard’s decision to be part of the investigation to begin with, as it puts the British in an untenable position.

Shootings atypical for al Qaeda
US intelligence officials believe that the use of guns against multiple targets distinctly points away from al Qaeda, whose standard methods of operation are designed to minimize the cost to the organization by causing the most damage possible from a single resource. Typically, that would mean either a suicide bomber or multiple bombings at the same time, using single assets for each attack.

Although there have been several attempts on Mrs. Bhutto’s life, the most recent prior to the fatal shooting was on December 8, 2007, when gunmen attacked a PPP office and killed three Bhutto supporters.

Late on the morning of Dec. 27, 2007, just hours before Mrs. Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, snipers attacked the followers of another opposition leader – former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party, who was also scheduled to speak in Rawalpindi – injuring 16 and killing 4.

The use of snipers and gunmen as assassins, say intelligence sources, does not support the theory that al Qaeda was behind the attacks. These sources added that if Mehsud was involved, it could have only been on contract through the ISI.

One US official concluded that if “Mehsud is in fact behind this, then it would be more of an indictment against the ISI than against al Qaeda.”

The ISI, the Taliban, and al Qaeda all have strong ties to one another. It is this complex relationship that confuses the players and the issues and prevents what many professional intelligence officers believe to be a much needed public understanding of what is terrorism and what is not.



In the case of the Bhutto assassination, these sources view the shooting as an act of murder, not an act of terrorism. As previously reported by Raw Story, they believe that the bombing that followed the shooting was aimed at eliminating the shooter and removing evidence of the assassination.

According to a former high ranking US intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the information, the US intelligence community understands the gunman to have been killed in the blast following Mrs. Bhutto's assassination.

“He was killed, probably not knowing that the suicide bomber was there,” said this source. “We don't know for sure if the two men arrived together. We do know that the assassin died in the explosion, and was probably meant to.”

Several other US intelligence officials concur that the bomber was likely “inserted” to “clean up” evidence of the shooting, including eliminating the gunman.

The real question for most of these sources is not “who,” but rather “how.” All of them are inclined to believe that factions of the ISI, either with or without the knowledge and backing of Musharraf, were involved in the assassination at the management level. It is those people who pose a continued danger, say US intelligence officials, to the Pakistani people and to nations in the region, as well as to the US.

A state within a state
The Pakistan Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence has been described as the shadow government of Pakistan or as “a state within a state.”

Although the ISI has existed since the 1940s, it became truly a world player during the Afghan-Soviet war, when many groups of foreign fighters – the Mujahedeen – worked as proxy warriors for Western nations against the Russians and were managed through the ISI. The ISI recruited, trained, and even housed many of these young fighters as they were readied for battle. For its efforts, the ISI was paid by the West as well, as by other nations in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, some of the Mujahedeen went home, some were absorbed into the ISI, and others splintered off to become al Qaeda and the Taliban, with the direct help of both elements within the ISI and Saudi Arabia. Although it remains a matter of debate just how much influence the ISI continues to exert over its al Qaeda and Taliban offspring, there is no question that there are certain individuals – and even small but powerful factions – within the ISI that have a very close relationship with terrorists and militants.

[simuvac]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/wo...gewanted=print

January 19, 2008
C.I.A. Sees Qaeda Link in the Death of Bhutto

By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that the assassins of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, were directed by Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani militant leader in hiding, and that some of them had ties to Al Qaeda.

The C.I.A.’s judgment is the first formal assessment by the American government about who was responsible for Ms. Bhutto’s Dec. 27 assassination, which took place during a political rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

“There are powerful reasons to believe that terror networks around Baitullah Mehsud were responsible,” said one American intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The official said that “different pieces of information” had pointed toward Mr. Mehsud’s responsibility, but he would not provide any details.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, discussed the agency’s conclusion in an interview with The Washington Post published Friday.

Some friends and supporters of Ms. Bhutto questioned the C.I.A. conclusions, especially since the former leader was buried before a full forensic investigation had been conducted. The British government has since sent a team from Scotland Yard to participate in the investigation into the assassination.

“The C.I.A. appears too eager to bail out its liaison services in Pakistan, who are being blamed by most Pakistanis,” said Husain Haqqani, a former adviser to Ms. Bhutto and a professor at Boston University.

“Given the division inside Pakistan on this issue, it might be better to have an international investigation under the aegis of the U.N.,” Mr. Haqqani said.

Within days of Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistani authorities announced they had intercepted communications between Mr. Mehsud and militant supporters in which they said the leader had congratulated his followers for the assassination and appeared to take responsibility for it.

Mr. Mehsud, through a spokesman, has denied responsibility for the killing and suggested that the assassins were directed by Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president and a longtime rival of Ms. Bhutto’s.

Members of Ms. Bhutto’s political party, along with some of her family members, have also challenged Pakistani government accounts of the attack. They have blamed Mr. Musharraf for failing to provide Ms. Bhutto with adequate protection as she campaigned around the country, and some have hinted that elements of Pakistan’s government may have been behind the assassination.

American and Pakistani officials have blamed Mr. Mehsud’s followers for many recent suicide attacks against government, military and intelligence targets in Pakistan. Based in the South Waziristan tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Mr. Mehsud runs training camps and dispatches suicide bombers beyond the border areas in both countries, the officials say. He is also believed to have links to the Arab and Central Asian militants who have established a stronghold in the tribal areas.

Government officials in Pakistan and independent security analysts say they believe that the Qaeda network in Pakistan is increasingly made up of homegrown militants who have made destabilizing the government a top priority.

American intelligence officials say they believe that Al Qaeda has steadily built a safe haven in the mountainous tribal areas of western Pakistan, constructing a band of makeshift compounds where both Pakistani militants and foreign fighters conduct training and planning for terrorist attacks.

This has led to mounting frustration among intelligence and counterterrorism officials, many of whom believe that the United States should take more aggressive unilateral steps to dismantle terrorist networks in the tribal areas. The Bush administration is currently considering proposals to step up covert actions in Pakistan against the Qaeda network.

[simuvac]

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...006003,00.html
Teen arrested over Bhutto assassination


Article from: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Islamabad

January 19, 2008 10:25pm


PAKISTANI police have arrested a teenager who was allegedly part of a five-man squad assigned to kill opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last month, security officials said.

The suspect, 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah, was arrested in the north-western city of Dera Ismail Khan while planning a suicide bombing during the Muslim festival of Ashura.

Shah told interrogators he had been part of a back-up team of three bombers who were tasked with killing the former premier if the original December 27 attack by two men had failed.

Interior ministry spokesman Iqbal Cheema could not confirm the arrest.

Ms Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and suicide bomb attack at an election rally in Rawalpindi. The government and CIA have blamed al-Qaeda and tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud for her killing.
Shah, originally from the southern city of Karachi, went for training last year at a camp run by one of Mehsud's commanders in the tribal border region of Waziristan, security officials quoted him as telling investigators.

He allegedly said the attackers in the team that killed Ms Bhutto were called Bilal and Ikramullah - the same names mentioned in an alleged telephone conversation between Mehsud and another militant the day after Ms Bhutto's death.

The tape was released the day after her killing by Pakistan's interior ministry.

Shah's whereabouts at the time of the attack were not immediately clear. One security official said he was in Rawalpindi, the city where Ms Bhutto was killed, while another said he was in the tribal area of Waziristan.

One of the officials said Shah was arrested during a security check when he arrived in Dera Ismail Khan by taxi from the North Waziristan tribal area, which borders Afghanistan.

He allegedly told officials that he came to collect a suicide jacket for an attack at the US consulate in Karachi, but the plan had been changed because of tight security for Ashura, which takes place tomorrow.

Instead, he was ordered to launch an attack during an Ashura procession by the minority Shi'ite sect tomorrow, the officials said.

[simuvac]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3295436.ece

Benazir Bhutto accuses Osama Bin Laden's son from beyond the grave


Dean Nelson and Ghulam Hasnain IN A POSTHUMOUS autobiography excerpted in The Sunday Times today, Benazir Bhutto names the 16-year-old son of Osama Bin Laden as the leader of one of four gangs of “designated assassins” sent to kill her.

The former Pakistan prime minister, who was assassinated as she left a rally in Rawalpindi in December, reveals she was warned by both President Pervez Musharraf and a “friendly Muslim government” that Hamza Bin Laden was planning her murder.

The naming of Bin Laden’s teenage son appears to bolster intelligence claims that Hamza is being groomed as a future leader of Al-Qaeda.

In her new autobiography, Bhutto writes: “I was told by both the Musharraf regime and the foreign Muslim government that four suicide bomber squads would attempt to kill me. These included, the reports said, the squads sent by the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud; Hamza Bin Laden, a son of Osama Bin Laden; Red Mosque militants; and a Karachi-based militant group.”

Little has been heard of Hamza since he featured in a joint Taliban and Al-Qaeda video, shot in 2001, of a militant attack on a Pakistan army camp in South Waziristan, a militant stronghold near the Afghan border.

Last September Hamza was described in reports as a senior Al-Qaeda leader who had been waging jihad in the lawless tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Bhutto’s book also describes how a suicide bomb attack on her motorcade in Karachi when she returned home last October may have been carried out by a would-be assassin who lined the clothes of a toddler with plastic explosive to turn the child into a bomb.

She says a man gestured to her to hold the child, before trying to hand it to police in a nearby van, which exploded soon afterwards.

[simuvac]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapc...tto/index.html

2 held over Bhutto assassination

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistani police have arrested two suspects over the assassination of former prime minister and leading opposition figure Benazir Bhutto.

The two suspects, named only as Rafaqat and Hasnain, were arrested in Rawalpindi, were arrested in Rawalpindi -- a garrison city outside Islamabad where Bhutto was killed -- the police official said.

No other details on their arrests were immediately available.

Pakistani investigators looking into Bhutto's December 27 killing are being assisted by a small team from Britain's Scotland Yard.

Police are still holding Aitzaz Shah, 15, and a man named Sher Zaman, who were detained last month in Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province.

Pakistani officials have been vague on Shan and Zaman's links to Bhutto's killing, and said they have not been named official suspects.

Pakistan's government has concluded that Bhutto's assassination was orchestrated by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who has ties to al Qaeda -- a conclusion that the CIA came to as well.

Bhutto was killed while standing in an moving armored car after rallying supporters for parliamentary elections. The vote, originally scheduled for early January, was postponed until Feb. 18 in the wake of her death.

Her head was above the sunroof and unprotected at the time of the attack.

The cause of her death is not clear: a bomber blew himself up near Bhutto's limousine, and videotape showed a gunman apparently firing shots toward her -- but no autopsy was carried out at the family's request.

Bhutto's family and party have accused Musharraf's government of having a role in her death, and have criticized the security provided to her by the government. Musharraf has denied any involvement in her death.

[simuvac]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/wo...gewanted=print

February 8, 2008
Head Injury Killed Bhutto, Report Said to Find

By ERIC SCHMITT and SALMAN MASOOD
WASHINGTON — Investigators from Scotland Yard have concluded that Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader, died after hitting her head as she was tossed by the force of a suicide blast, not from an assassin’s bullet, officials who have been briefed on the inquiry said Thursday.

The findings support the Pakistani government’s explanation of Ms. Bhutto’s death in December, an account that had been greeted with disbelief by Ms. Bhutto’s supporters, other Pakistanis and medical experts.

Also on Thursday, the Pakistani government announced the arrest of two more suspects in connection with the assassination plot but gave few other details.

Thousands of Ms. Bhutto’s supporters gathered in her hometown in southern Pakistan, marking the end of a 40-day mourning period.

It is unclear how the Scotland Yard investigators reached such conclusive findings absent autopsy results or other potentially important evidence that was washed away by cleanup crews in the immediate aftermath of the blast, which also killed more than 20 other people.

The British inquiry also determined that a lone gunman, whose image was captured in numerous photographs at the scene, also caused the explosion, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public. Pakistani authorities originally said there were two assailants, based partly on photographs splashed across the front pages of the nation’s leading newspapers.

Scotland Yard investigators relayed their key findings to the government of President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday, according to the officials.

The investigators are expected to present a formal report to the Pakistani government on Friday, as well as to Ms. Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, now co-chairman of her Pakistan Peoples Party, and the couple’s 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is a student in London.

Scotland Yard said through a spokesman in London that it would have no comment on the Bhutto report until after it was made public. The British team is to present its report on Friday to the additional inspector general of police, Abdul Majid, who is leading the Pakistani investigation team.

Scotland Yard’s report will be presented just days before the country’s parliamentary elections on Feb. 18.

The findings are certain to be met with widespread skepticism, especially from Mrs. Bhutto’s supporters who blame the government for her death, in particular Mr. Musharraf and the leading politician of the party that backs him, Pervez Elahi. They also are unlikely to calm the turmoil in the country now that the 40 days of mourning has ended.

Mr. Zardari and his party’s supporters say they believe she was shot, as do people who were riding with Ms. Bhutto when she died on Dec. 27 after her vehicle came under attack as she left a political rally in Rawalpindi.

The doctors who treated Ms. Bhutto told a member of the hospital board, an eminent lawyer, Athar Minallah, that she had most likely been shot. Ms. Bhutto’s brazen killing set off days of violent protests and rioting across Pakistan. To allay public anger and to lend credibility to the investigations into the assassination plot, Mr. Musharraf invited a team of Scotland Yard forensic experts to assist Pakistani investigators in early January.

But the British investigators have faced several hurdles, including the compromise of the crime scene by cleanup crews and Mr. Zardari’s refusal to allow an examination of Ms. Bhutto’s body.

Mr. Musharraf has said that among the pieces of evidence potentially available to investigators was an X-ray taken by hospital technicians of Ms. Bhutto’s wounded skull. Investigators pored over hundreds of photographs taken at the scene, many by people with cellphone cameras.

The question of an autopsy became central to the circumstances of Ms. Bhutto’s death because of conflicting versions of the critical events put forward by the Pakistani government.

Ms. Bhutto was standing in an open-roofed vehicle at the time of the attack. On the night she was killed, an unidentified Interior Ministry spokesman was quoted by the official Pakistani news agency as saying that she had died of a “bullet wound in the neck by a suicide bomber.”

But the official account later released by Pakistan’s government said that she had not been shot, but had instead died as a result of a skull fracture caused when her head struck a lever on her vehicle’s sunroof as she ducked back into the vehicle during the attacks.

Even as the authorities in Islamabad prepared to receive the report, the government on Thursday announced the arrests of the two additional suspects in Ms. Bhutto’s death. Pakistani officials said that they were arrested Thursday morning in Rawalpindi, a city about seven miles from the capital that is home to the army’s headquarters. They gave few other details.

“All I can say is that two persons by the name of Husnain and Rafaqat were arrested today in the morning,” said Javed Iqbal Cheema, a retired brigadier who is the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, in a telephone interview Thursday evening.

The government officials described the arrests as an “important breakthrough,” but they did not say what role they believed the two arrested played in Ms. Bhutto’s death.

Mr. Cheema denied reports that one of the arrested men was the brother of the man said to have been the suicide bomber. Pakistani officials consider Baitullah Mehsud, the militant leader of the South Waziristan region, as one of the prime suspects in the Bhutto case.

Last month, the authorities arrested a teenager from North-West Frontier Province in connection with the case and later made an additional arrest. Both suspects are now under investigation, according to the Interior Ministry.

In Garhi Khuda Baksh in southern Sindh Province, where Ms. Bhutto is buried at her family mausoleum, caravans of supporters started gathering Thursday morning, according to the local news media. Prayer services were also held in other cities.

Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan. Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Islamabad.

[simuvac]

New Bhutto Assassination Video

http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?rpc...opNews&rpc=401

[Gold9472]

Pakistan asks U.N. to investigate Bhutto assassination

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapc...eref=rss_world

6/7/2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan said Saturday that it had asked the U.N. to investigate the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said Pakistan's ambassador to the U.N. handed the request to the world body's secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, in New York on Friday.

It was unclear when Ban would make a decision and whether he would refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council.

Bhutto died in a gun-and-suicide bomb attack December 27 as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi.

Her death shocked the world and Pakistan, fanning revulsion at rising militant violence as well as conspiracy theories that Pakistan's powerful spy agencies were involved.

It also helped carry her Pakistan People's Party to victory in February elections. The party leads a seven-week-old coalition government that has made a U.N. investigation into who was behind the killing a top priority.

The previous government and the CIA quickly accused Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani militant commander often blamed for suicide attacks, of orchestrating the killing.

Pakistan's Interior Ministry released a wiretap in which Mehsud associates purportedly congratulated each other for her death. Bhutto had called for Pakistan to redouble its efforts against Islamic extremism.

President Pervez Musharraf and the U.S. have opposed a U.N. investigation.

But Bhutto's party argues that the world body should look into the killing because of Mehsud's alleged links to al Qaeda and because of the huge political controversy that surrounds the case in Pakistan.

Sadiq said Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi would soon travel to New York for talks with Ban and members of the Security Council. He said he was confident the U.N. would accept the request.

A U.N. spokeswoman said last month that Ban was likely to refer the matter to the Security Council.