Bhutto probe: More than enough blame
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has suspended eight police officials following the release
of a United Nations report into the assassination of former prime minister,
Benazir Bhutto, but no action has been taken against any members of the
military or intelligence agencies, even though the report implicates the
military in the events surrounding Bhutto's death on December 27, 2007.
"The failure of the police to investigate effectively Ms Bhutto's assassination
was deliberate," the report found.
There has also been no official response to the report's
suggestion that the Pakistan authorities should investigate the al-Qaeda
connection in the assassination plot. The 70-page report, made public by an
inquiry commission established by the UN last July, specifically mentions an
article by Asia Times Online in making this suggestion. (See
Al-Qaeda claims Bhutto killing December 29, 2007.)
Bhutto's assassination after leaving a campaign rally in the garrison city of
Rawalpindi two weeks before general elections has been the subject of intense
controversy, and while the report does not give any definitive answers it is
most likely to intensify divisions between the ruling Pakistan People's Party
(PPP) and the military establishment, both of which are tainted by the report.
Current officials, the report says, were less than helpful. "The investigation
was severely hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials,
which impeded the search for the truth," Heraldo Munoz, chair of the Bhutto
Commission of Inquiry and permanent representative of Chile to the UN, said.
"These officials, in part fearing intelligence agencies' involvement, were
unsure of how vigorously they ought to pursue actions which they knew, as
professionals, they should have taken," he said.
The commission's report, based on interviews with 250 people in and outside
Pakistan as well as other evidence, says the official investigation focused on
"low-level operatives and placed little or no focus on investigating those
further up the hierarchy in the planning, financing and execution of the
assassination".
The report says the killing was carried out by one teenage suicide bomber who
also fired shots. However, Pakistani investigators have always insisted that at
least two people were involved - the bomber and the person who fired.
Bhutto - who had twice been premier (1988-1990 and 1993-1996) - had recently
returned to Pakistan after living in exile for about eight years. The
three-member commission's report notes that Bhutto faced threats from a number
of sources, including al-Qaeda, the Taliban, local jihadi groups and
"potentially from elements in the Pakistani establishment".
The PPP, which Bhutto led and which is now co-chaired by her widower, President
Asif Ali Zardari, has threatened to take action against former military ruler,
General Pervez Musharraf, who was president when Bhutto was killed. PPP leaders
resolved in a statement to expose and bring to justice all those, including
Musharraf, "who planned, abetted and indulged in the criminal act, screened off
the offenders and destroyed the evidence".
One of the officials removed includes a senior police officer, Saud Aziz, who
ordered the scene of the murder to be hosed down and who the report says
destroyed invaluable evidence. The report suggests Aziz was acting under the
direction of the then head of the military intelligence agency, Major General
Nadeem Ijaz Ahmad, who still has a senior job in the Pakistani army and who was
known to be very close to Musharraf.
One of the PPP's leaders, Senator Rahman Malik, who is Interior minister, comes
under fire in the report. Malik has always claimed that at the time he was
Bhutto's national security advisor, not in charge of her physical safety, but
the report found evidence that Malik did in fact oversee Bhutto's entire
security arrangements.
One of the most controversial characters to emerge from the report is the
former military intelligence chief, Ijaz, who is now Log Area Commander
Gujranwala. While the report refers to his close ties to Musharraf, it does not
mention that at the time of the assassination Ijaz, by virtue of his
designation and the hierarchy of the army, would have had lines of
communication that went directly to the chief of army staff, General Ashfaq
Parvez Kiani, who still holds the post.
Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was at the time of Bhutto's death the director
general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, which also came out badly in the
report. Taj is now Corps Commander Gujranwala.
The accusations against the military and the intelligence services, that they
facilitated security loopholes or that they covered up evidence, reflect badly
on these institutions as a whole and can be expected to cause fresh
civil-military polarization in Pakistan.
An assassination unfolds
At the time of her death, Bhutto was vigorously campaigning around the country,
following the November 20 announcement of general elections to be held on
January 8. She had returned to Pakistan from exile in October, after a
US-brokered deal with Musharraf gave her immunity from charges of corruption
during her previous terms as prime minister. In return, her PPP supported
Musharraf's bid to be re-elected as president.
In election speeches Bhutto lambasted Islamic extremism and asked the people to
stand against it. She also regularly spoke against al-Qaeda and had supported
Musharraf's bloody crackdown in July 2007 on the radical Lal Masjid (Red
Mosque) in Islamabad that had become a focal point for militants
After the Lal Masjid incident, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden assigned Abu
Obaida al-Misiri as Amir-e-Khuruj (commander for revolt) and, when Bhutto
started to hit the headlines, Misiri was assigned to take her out.
Among others, he set up a cell in Rawalpindi specifically tasked with killing
Bhutto. Among its members were Aitzaz Shah, Hasnain Gul, Rifaqat, Sher Zaman
and Abdul Rasheed, all of whom were subsequently arrested.
A senior Pakistani security official who interrogated all five, at least three
times, told Asia Times Online that this cell was active in Rawalpindi for
several months before Bhutto's assassination, including an attack on a police
check post in Golf Road that leads to military headquarters (GHQ Rawalpindi).
"These young men were a by-product of a time when the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan
[TTP - Pakistani Taliban, formed in late 2007 and early 2008] was not around.
They were zealous for jihad and they joined the [Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin]
Haqqani network in North Waziristan [tribal area]," the security official said.
"While there, they interacted with different militant organizations and they
finally landed in a group that was a nexus between Pakistani militant
organizations [known as Punjabi fighters], al-Qaeda and Baitullah Mehsud [who
was to become head of the TTP. They were assigned to go to Rawalpindi to
support the cause of al-Qaeda.
"When the two suicide bombers, Ikramullah and Bilal, were sent from South
Waziristan [to kill Bhutto], the cell facilitated them. They arranged their
residence and helped them in the preparation of the attack. They [the cell
members] were the backup of the attackers and if the attackers failed, they
would have done so," the official said.
Although in the narrow sense Baitullah Mehsud supplied the attackers, at the
broader level it was an al-Qaeda plan that had been discussed at length by the
al-Qaeda shura (council), which decided that there was a religious
justification for killing Bhutto and that her death could deal a setback for
the interests of the United States in the region.
The National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which came into effect in October
2007, was a deal brokered by London and Washington as a part of a broader plan
to introduce a liberal, secular and democratic government in Pakistan that
would faithfully support the "war on terror".
The NRO, which was overturned this year, granted amnesty to politicians,
political workers and bureaucrats who were accused of corruption, embezzlement,
money laundering, murder and terrorism. Two of the main beneficiaries were
Bhutto and her husband Zardari, who were cleared to return to Pakistan, with
Bhutto earmarked to lead the new government.
Bhutto's killing put an end to that plan, while Musharraf was also a loser as
he lost control of the helm and eventually resigned in August 2008, paving the
way for Zardari to take over a month later.
While al-Qaeda clearly orchestrated the killing of Bhutto, the UN's report
implies that the security forces did not prevent the attack (the report uses
the term malafide) and that after the murder, the report implied, in
order to cover this up, the security forces washed away all the evidence from
the murder site.
Immediately after Bhutto's assassination, a Musharraf government spokesperson
came out with an intercept of a tape between Baitullah Mehsud and militants
that inferred that the attack was carried out on the instructions or with the
coordination of Baitullah Mehsud, and therefore everybody pointed a finger at
him. The UN report also documents that the Pakistan Military Operations had
given an advance warning on December 21 that bin Laden had given an order for
Bhutto's killing.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He is
writing an exclusive account of al-Qaeda's strategy and ideology in an upcoming
book 9/11 and beyond: The One Thousand and One Night Tales of Al-Qaeda. He
can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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