Below are excerpts from some reports that appeared in the international media on December 28, a day after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination:
Bin Laden Killed Bhutto? How Blind Can We Be? William M Arkin
The Washington Post, December 28, 2007
The shorthand being bandied about in the news that al-Qaeda is responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is so sloppy, so lacking in nuance or understanding of the dynamics of Pakistan, and so self-centered in its reference to America's enemy as to be almost laughable.
Several U.S. defense and intelligence experts are quoted today dismissing even the possibility that President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani government forces, or other domestic elements could be involved, a conclusion that flies in the face of the country's history and ignores the obvious beneficiaries.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, commander of U.S. Central Command during the Clinton administration, told The Washington Post that there is "no doubt in my mind" that the murderers are linked to al-Qaeda. In an interview with Time magazine, he elaborated: "[T]hey're the only ones who gain from this.... I really think they're trying to ignite Pakistan into the kind of chaos they need to survive."
Former CIA official and National Security Council staffer Bruce Riedel, now at the Brookings Institution, is spouting the same theory, telling Newsweek that the assassination was "almost certainly the work of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda's Pakistani allies...T objective is to destabilize the Pakistani state, to break up the secular political parties, to break up the army so that Pakistan becomes a politically failing state in which the Islamists in time can come to power much as they have in other failing states."
To be sure, al-Qaeda has found sanctuary in Pakistan since its founding in 1988. Key al-Qaeda lieutenants such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Sept. 11 organizer, have operated from there. Before Sept. 11, Pakistan was a source of recruits and financing and technical support for al-Qaeda. And since Sept. 11, "al Qaeda" has been tied to various attempts to kill President Musharraf and to attacks on Pakistani Army and intelligence facilities - attacks that have increased in frequency and consequence since the central government sought to control the lawless border region. The thinking is that al-Qaeda has been trying to preserve its freedom of operations and to build relations with like-minded affiliates and Pakistani jihadis.
That said, al-Qaeda -- at least the movement led by and associated with Osama bin Laden -- is in terms of power and importance at the bottom of a long list of anti-democratic factions in Pakistan, including malcontents in the active and retired military, renegade intelligence and secret service elements, radical Islamic political parties, extremist Sunni movements, indigenous terrorist organizations and Afghan and Pakistani "Taliban" movements.
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. 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.
Musharraf, of course, will say that he "warned" Bhutto of the dangers. Though, given that Bhutto's father, another former prime minister, was hanged by a military dictatorship and her two brothers were killed under suspicious circumstances, she no doubt already understood the landscape of domestic threats.
Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence officials are trying to verify the claim, via an Italian website, that al-Qaeda was behind the killing. Mustafa Abu al Yazid, al-Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan, allegedly told a reporter: "We have terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahedin." The website reported that the call to assassinate Bhutto came from al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri.
This claim of responsibility is highly suspect. And, if al-Qaeda were involved at all, it's less likely to have dictated decisions than to have been used by domestic factions pursuing their own power objectives. Those factions almost universally have an interest in labeling all lawlessness and terrorism "al Qaeda" activity.
Given Pakistan's history, it is unlikely that the true perpetrators will ever be brought to justice. For the United States though, the al-Qaeda bogey-man has the negative effect of affirming support for Musharraf and his martial law, while ignoring the various extremists who represent the true existential threat to the country. We should not let our al-Qaeda fixation blind us, just as the Soviet threat did in Iran in the 1970s, to the realities that Pakistan could implode of its own accord.
Assassination Is Laid to Team of Precision Snipers
New York Sun, December 28, 2007
The attack…bore the hallmarks of a sophisticated military operation. According to press reports and a situation report of the incident relayed to The New York Sun by an American intelligence officer, Bhutto's armored limousine was shot by multiple snipers whose armor-piercing bullets penetrated the vehicle, hitting the former premier five times in the head, chest, and neck. Two of the snipers then detonated themselves shortly after the shooting, according to the situation report, while being pursued by local police.
A working theory, according to this American source, 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. This official, however, stressed this was just a theory at this point. Other theories include that the assassins were trained by Qaeda or were from other military services, or the possibility that the assassins were retired Pakistani special forces.
"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."
Bhutto survived a suicide bombing attack in October and then went public with a list of former and current security and military officials she said had been plotting to kill her. At the time, she asked for the FBI to investigate the attacks.
The prospect that Bhutto's attackers were trained special forces operatives raises profound questions for America's policy of giving financial aid to Pakistan's military. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, America has provided the regime with more than $10 billion.
A close associate of Bhutto for more than two decades, Hussein Haqqani, yesterday said he believed Pakistan's security services were complicit in the assassination of his friend. "I don't think they were complicit, as in, they did it, I mean this as they allowed this to happen. Of course that includes the possibility of actual complicity. I think her security needs and concerns were not addressed," he told the Sun.
Mr. Haqqani pointed to prior attempts to assassinate President Musharraf and the attacks earlier this month against Pakistan's interior minister. "In all of these attacks, no one could penetrate the security cordon. People were killed, but the targets survived," he said.
"The fact of the matter remains that Pakistani security services have many people in it who worked very closely with several jihadi groups that now work with global jihadi forces," he said. A Pakistan expert at the Rand Corporation, Seth Jones, said he would need to study the technical details of the assassination to determine if it was an inside job. "If there is anywhere to fault the national security establishment, it would be not protecting her well enough," he said.
Main suspects are warlords and security forces
The Times, December 28, 2007
After the October bombing, Ms Bhutto “accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack. She indicated that she had more to fear from unidentified members of a power structure that she described as allies of the “forces of militancy”.
Analysts say that President Musharraf is unlikely to have ordered her assassination, but that elements of the Army and intelligence service stood to lose money and power if she became prime minister. The ISI includes some Islamists who became radicalised while running the American-funded campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan and were opposed to her on principle.
Who Killed Benazir Bhutto?
Countercurrents.org, 28 December, 2007
Despite the "deal' between Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, she was seen as main challenge to the current government. This is important to note that General Musharraf allowed Bhutto into Pakistan only after tremendous US pressure. When she arrived in Pakistan in October last, thousands of people who came to receive her gave sleepless nights to the government authorities. This ultimately paved way for the return of Nawaz Sharief another former Prime Minister who was earlier deported as soon as he landed in Pakistan.
Although the Jihadists and Al-Qaeda had allegedly vowed to kill her, the current Pakistani regime headed by General Musharraf can not be absolved and will be the greatest benefactor of her death. Another rival who may have been willing to see her dead are Chaudhry Brothers -- Chaudhry Pervez Illahi and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of Pakistan Muslim League Q, the political partner of General Musharraf. The Chaudhry Brothers were the bitterest opponents of Benazir's homecoming and tried unsuccessfully to stop President Musharraf from doing a deal with Bhutto.
When the terrorists attacked Benazir's homecoming rally on October 18, 2007, she blamed former Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Ilahi. Chaudhry Brothers have had well documented connections with the Jihadist extremists and are well known to use violence for their political goals.
Even if President Musharraf's government may not be directly involved in her killing, it can not be absolved of inaction in protecting her. Despite being on the "hit list' of terrorists and extremists, Benazir was not provided ample security cover. The deterioration of Pakistan's intelligence and security apparatus to predict or stop suicide bombings can be gauged by the number of rising fatal bombings in and around the highest protected area of the Army Headquarters GHQ in Rawalpindi. Benazir Bhutto was also killed in Rawalpindi not far from the country's military headquarters.
Benazir Bhutto Pays With Life For Democracy
Inter-Press Service, December 28, 2007
Addressing a press conference the following day, a defiant Bhutto had pointed to the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in the attacks by mentioning three anonymous men whom she said she had named in a letter to Musharraf on Oct. 16. "I said that if something happens to me, I will hold them responsible rather than militant groups like the Taliban, al Qaeda or the Pakistani Taliban."
The PPP also demanded the removal of Intelligence Bureau chief, Ijaz Shah, hinting at its links with militancy. Bhutto's later claim that the Oct. 18 blasts were remote-controlled further implied the involvement of forces other than the "religious militants" who are traditionally held responsible for such acts
