West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: Tay on December 28, 2007, 05:17:00 PM
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Pakistan: Al-Qaida behind Bhutto killing By MUNIR AHMED, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 57 minutes ago
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's government asserted Friday that al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and offered the transcript from a phone tap as proof. Hundreds of thousands mobbed her funeral as the army tried to quell rioting elsewhere that left 27 dead.
President Pervez Musharraf's government also said Bhutto was not killed by gunshots or shrapnel as originally claimed. Instead, it said her skull was shattered by the force of a suicide bomb blast that slammed her against a lever in her car's sunroof.
The new explanations were part of a rapidly evolving political crisis triggered by the death of Bhutto, Musharraf's most powerful foe in the elections. The rioting by Bhutto's furious supporters raised concerns that this nuclear-armed nation, plagued by chaos and the growing threat from Islamic militants even before the killing, was in danger of spinning out of control.
Pentagon officials said Friday they have seen nothing to give them any worries about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
While many grieving Pakistanis turned to violence, hundreds of thousands paid their last respects to the popular opposition leader as she was placed beside her father in a marble mausoleum in the Bhutto ancestral village in southern Sindh province.
"I don't know what will happen to the country now," said mourner Nazakat Soomro, 32.
The government said it would hunt down those responsible for her death in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border where Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders are thought to be hiding.
"They will definitely be brought to justice," Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.
The government released a transcript Friday of a purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud and another militant.
"It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her," Mehsud said, according to the transcript. The government did not release an audiotape.
Cheema described Mehsud as an al-Qaida leader who was also behind most other recent terror attacks in Pakistan, including the Karachi bomb blast in October against Bhutto that killed more than 140 people.
Mehsud is thought to be the commander of pro-Taliban forces in the tribal region of South Waziristan, where al-Qaida fighters are also active.
In the transcript, Mehsud gives his location as Makin, a town in South Waziristan.
This fall, he was quoted in a Pakistani newspaper as saying that he would welcome Bhutto's return from exile with suicide bombers. Mehsud later denied that in statements to local television and newspaper reporters.
Cheema announced the formation of two inquiries into Bhutto's death, one to be carried out by a high court judge and another by security forces. Bhutto was assassinated Thursday evening after a rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad. Twenty other people also died in the attack.
On Thursday, authorities had said Bhutto died from bullet wounds fired by a young man who then blew himself up. A surgeon who treated her, however, said Friday she died from the impact of shrapnel on her skull.
But later Friday, Cheema said those two accounts were mistaken. He said all three shots missed her as she greeted supporters through the sunroof of her vehicle, which was bulletproof and bombproof.
He also denied that shrapnel caused her death, saying Bhutto was killed when she tried to duck back into the vehicle, and that the shock waves from the blast knocked her head into a lever attached to the sunroof, fracturing her skull. The government released a photograph showing blood on the lever.
Denying charges the government failed to give her adequate security protection, Cheema said it was Bhutto who made herself vulnerable and pointed out that the other passengers inside Bhutto's bombproof vehicle were fine.
"I wish she had not come out of the rooftop of her vehicle," he said.
Bhutto's death sparked deadly rioting that killed at least 27 people, according to an Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Rioters in the southern city of Karachi torched 500 vehicles, 13 banks, seven gas stations and two police stations, police chief Azhar Farooqi said. The violence killed 13 people, including five workers in a garment factory that was set ablaze, police said. A shootout between rioters and police wounded three officers, police said.
Another six people died from suffocation in Mirpurkhas, about 200 miles northeast of Karachi, when a bank building was set on fire, said Ghulam Mohammed Mohtaram, the top civilian security official in Sindh province.
About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas. Media reports said 200 banks were attacked nationwide.
Vandals also burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Sindh province, forcing the suspension of all train service between Karachi and the eastern Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railroad official.
An Associated Press reporter saw nine cars of a train completely burned. Witnesses said all the passengers were pulled out before the train was torched.
Desperate to quell the violence, the government sent troops into the streets of Hyderabad, Karachi and other areas in Sindh. In Hyderabad, the soldiers refused to let people out of their homes, witnesses said.
The army readied 20 battalions of troops for deployment across Sindh if they were needed to stop the violence, according to a military statement.
"We will sternly deal with those who are trying to create disorder," Cheema said.
Paramilitary rangers were also given the authority to use live fire to stop rioters from damaging property in the region, said Maj. Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman.
"We have orders to shoot on sight," he said.
Many cities were nearly deserted as businesses closed and public transportation came to a halt at the start of three days of national mourning for Bhutto.
Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said the government had no immediate plans to postpone Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, despite the violence and the decision by Nawaz Sharif, another opposition leader, to boycott the poll.
"Right now the elections stand where they were," he told a news conference.
The United States, which sees Pakistan as a crucial ally in the war on terror, was counting on Musharraf to proceed with the vote in the hope it will cement steps toward restoring democracy after the six-week state of emergency he declared last month.
Keeping the election on track was the biggest immediate concern in sustaining an American policy of promoting stability, moderation and democracy in Pakistan, U.S. officials said Friday.
Bhutto's death left her populist party without a clear successor. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who was freed in December 2004 after eight years in detention on graft charges, is one contender to head the party although he lacks the cachet of a blood relative from the Bhutto clan's political dynasty.
Throughout the day, hundreds of thousands of mourners arrived in Bhutto's hometown of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in tractors, buses, cars and jeeps for her funeral cortege and burial.
Bhutto's plain wood coffin, draped in the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan People's Party, was carried in a white ambulance toward the marble mausoleum about three miles away, passing a burning passenger train on the way.
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Associated Press reporter Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
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You guys hear about this? I had never heard of her until a couple days ago, when I read about her in the newspaper. A couple days later, I hear that she's dead. What do you guys think about this, especially those that live outside of the United States?
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yeah, this happened yesterday; never really liked her. she never did much for the country.
as for Pakistan and democracy, it won't work right now. they need a harsh leader to first get rid of all the militants.
because anytime there are elections, there will always be violence where innocent people get killed and then riots.
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RIP to her.
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People not visibly connected to Musharrif and Bush killed her.
My paranoia knows no bounds.
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Clearly this is America's fault.
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The american gov't pressured Musharraf to allow Bhutto back into the country. They should have known the FIRST time there was a bombing aimed at her, in which 120 people died, that she was in danger in Pakistan. She took a great risk, and though saying that this was a CIA assassination is a far fetched assumption, they have a history of false flag operations since world war I. Watch Musharraf get deposed within the next couple months - he hasn't been exactly the kind of puppet that the U.S. wants him to be
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Clearly this is America's fault.
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Clearly this is America's fault.
How so? I know nothing of this situation.
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Clearly this is America's fault.
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Clearly this is America's fault.
How?
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It's interesting how she was buried almost within 24 hours of her death. What is being hidden?
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Clearly this is America's fault.
How?
American foreign policy
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Clearly this is America's fault.
She was Musharrif's greatest opponent and Musharif is Bush's greatest ally in Pakistan. Go figure.
LOL @ Al-Qaeda killed her.
Next Al-Qaeda will kill Ron Paul and an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber will take out all the Democrat Presidential nominees.
Let me guess. Now Musharif's appointed Pakistani Armed forces Commander will now declare marshall law because Pakistan is on the verge of civil war.
Suddenly Mushariff's lil homies are back in power. How convenient.
Don't you know Bad Boys move in silence and violence
Take it from your highness
-Biggie.
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Damn, I'm watching the news and all those Pakis are going nuts!
Starting riots and shits...
*shakes my head*
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i heard she was corrupt as fuck anyways, rip to her....
but yo...thats how shit pens out these days
pz
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Thanks for all of your explanations on this, it definitely sounds suspect, especially when our government has our hands in this. It will be interesting how it plays out with Musharraf.
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It's interesting how she was buried almost within 24 hours of her death. What is being hidden?
I think it's a Muslim thing to bury with in 24 hours.
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Theres alot of conflicting reports here as to who did it and why...anything right now is speculation
personally, i dont think this was an act of the Taliban. Behtullah Mehsud, the Amir of South Waziristan has denied any involvement in this. And if he did this, he definitely would not deny it.
Most likely, it was an Islamic psycho who was helped by elements of the ISI.....
Both the Military-Industrial-Intelligence complex in Pakistan, as well as the Al Qaeda-Taliban-Islamist axis stood to gain from this.
As for American direct involvement, too soon to say. But indirectly, through foregn policy blunder after blunder, yeah they share some blame
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It's interesting how she was buried almost within 24 hours of her death. What is being hidden?
I think it's a Muslim thing to bury with in 24 hours.
Really? I guess I need to take Islam 101.
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It's interesting how she was buried almost within 24 hours of her death. What is being hidden?
I think it's a Muslim thing to bury with in 24 hours.
Really? I guess I need to take Islam 101.
nah thats wrong. you have to bury the body as soon as possible. but, Muslims don't do an autopsy or bullshit like that. right after someone dies, all you're suppost to do is clean the body, wrap it up in a white sheet, and get the funeral scheduled (call close friends etc.) other then that, it doesnt matter if it takes 1 day, or 3 days, as long as the the burial is done properly.
t
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Imma keep my muthafucking mouth shut now.........
I guarantee I'll be under investigation
You can't handle the whole, I'll slam you on your skull
Or we can go blow for blow like Evander and Bowe, ya never know
However tho' I still hold the title
When all my rivals the chance to dance who missed the homicidal
Hand on the bible I swear to defend my crown
I've been around since forever and never let it touch the ground
Don't fuck around and catch a rude awakenin'
My crew's basically waitin' patiently for you to move your patrons in
Then we'll surround you, form Desert Storm and pound you
Look around you, Terror Squad's everywhere like Soundview
The Boogie Down do it like nobody, who are we?
The foundation, you're facin' a whole army...
-Big Pun, Capital Punishment.
if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. jah!
-from Bob Marrley's "Get up stand up"
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^ wtf?
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Musharrif had nothing to gain from this, he bent over backwards to let her back in and run again giving her anmesty against her corruption cases, he warned her about threats to her life and when the security forces tried to protect her she complained and she continued to get dangerously close to people at political rallies even after the failed bomb attempt on her life a couple of months ago which killed a bunch of her supporters. now her party is complaining about the government not doing enough to protect her.
The motivation to kill her would come from the taliban/al quaeda militants who she had vowed to crack down on, with the powerful PPP supporting and controling the army operations the governement would have held a great deal of credibility which would lead to far less unrest, unlike the current one now.
Pakistan doesn't need a dictatorship, the west has been worried about how pakistan might turn out in a fully feldged democracy, but seem to foget the would probably have more influence over a democratic government than a dictator, who can be seen as a US puppet. Islamists are very unlikely to take power, although the longer pakis are denied democracy the more popular islamists are likely to become.
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^ wtf?
...yeah i know, i know.....was extremely high.
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The problem with idiots who think Bush is behind this is, if Bush was into killing political oponents there'd be a lot of dead democrats in Washington. That someone could think that blows my mind when the evidence against it is so obvious.
Also, if you know a fucking thing about Pakistan you know Bhutto was becoming more friendly with America and possibly would have been more harmonious to America than Musharaff, who has said things like "No American troops will ever stand on Paki soil" and shit like that.
Benazir Bhutto may have been loved by a number of Paki's but she was kicked out of office twice over corruption. This was no saint, this was a woman who was groomed to be prime minister by her father at a young age and it's all she ever knew to do.
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its sad that a human being wit a family, husband an kids was taking out like that, I don't think there was any need to take it to that level, rip to benazir bhutto, an condolences definetly go out to her family an that you know, but people have to keep this in perspective, she was a US puppet 300%, more than Musharaff is, whose like 100% puppet, yousee what I'm saying, an I don't think she would have got elected if she had been in the elections, so I don't why the people that killed her merked her in the first place, I feel it wasn't needed, an was over the top, its sad, rip to benazir bhutto, true stories
the people that killed her wasn't Al Queda or the Taliban like the western media is reporting, but it was probably the Pakistan intellegence community, like the ISI that was behind it, because she was gonna flop there money an crack down on there islamist ties an let the US take the piss in Pakistan, those are probably the real reasons that are behind her assassination an that you know, true stories, but lke I said before, rip to her you know, its real, lets go