The Shadow Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

According to an article by Alamgir Hussain, Benazir was a fomenter of Jihadism in the days of her office as Prime Minister. Yet she came back to Pakistan to attempt a middle ground for Pakistanis by being the voice of democratic institutions which diametrically opposite of the Theo-Political ideology of Jihad-Islamism.

One could extrapolate her agenda was not as saintly as the image she tried to project to the West. I suspect the wily female politician saw an opportunity to play the military and the Islamists and form a position of power with an image of secularism. In other words her motive was not to seal democracy but to self-aggrandize power for the Bhutto family. I suspect her miscalculation was that Islamists have infiltrated the Pakistan military and Intelligence community with Islamist sympathizers.

I suspect her assassination was the result of Islamists not appreciating a woman leader and a divided military (Islamist sympathizers and traditional elitist secularists) not wanting to tolerate a Bhutto insertion into Pakistani politics.

Bhutto’s murder smacks of a good old fashioned conspiracy theory that I doubt the complete truth of who the murder conspirators were will be known for some time.

JRH

Transcript of alleged al-Qaida intercept

By The Associated Press
Yahoo News
December 28, 2007 3:38 PM ET

A transcript released by the Pakistani government Friday of a purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is referred to as Emir Sahib, and another man identified as a Maulvi Sahib, or Mr. Cleric. The government alleges the intercepted conversation proves al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:

Maulvi Sahib: Peace be on you.

Mehsud: Peace be on you, too.

Maulvi Sahib: How are you Emir Sahib?

Mehsud: Fine.

Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations. I arrived now tonight.

Mehsud: Congratulations to you, too.

Maulvi Sahib: They were our men there.

Mehsud: Who were they?

Maulvi Sahib: There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there.

Mehsud: The three did it?

Maulvi Sahib: Ikramullah and Bilal did it.

Mehsud: Then congratulations to you again.

Maulvi: Where are you? I want to meet with you?

Mehsud: I am in Makin. Come I am at Anwar Shah's home.

Maulvi Sahib: OK I will come.

Mehsud: Do not inform their family presently.

Maulvi Sahib: Right.

Mehsud: It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.

Maulvi Sahib: Praise be to God. I will give you more details when I come.

Mehsud: I will wait for you. Congratulation once again.

Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations to you as well.

Mehsud: Any service?

Mauvliv: Thank you very much?

Mehsud: Peace be on you.

Maulvi: Same to you.

_____________________

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Pakistan names suspect in Bhutto killing

The Musharraf government says it has proof that al Qaeda assassinated Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan has released to the public an alleged communication interception of al Qaeda operatives speaking about the “who done its” and includes conversational back slapping of congratulations of a job well done. (I will post the transcript because of Yahoo’s rep of removing links or updating content with the same link)

Terrorist organizations are usually hot to claim the glory of a perceived victory. Here I am reading the government knows who did the assassination and is going after the surviving assassination cell. It may be true, but something just reads as to convenient and tidy of an explanation from a nation that has not controlled al Qaeda and the Taliban that have blatantly operated from the sovereign nation of Pakistan.

I still think there was collusion within the Pakistan military and their Intelligence modus operandi in the assassination of Bhutto.

Here is the Yahoo News account of the Musharraf government findings:

JRH 12/28/07
*********************

Pakistan names suspect in Bhutto killing

By MUNIR AHMED, Associated Press Writer
Yahoo News
December 28, 2007 5:03 PM ET

Pakistan's government announced it had evidence that an al-Qaida operative was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who was laid to rest Friday as the army tried to quell a frenzy of rioting that left 27 people dead less than two weeks before national elections.

The government, led by President Pervez Musharraf, 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 by the government in the death of Bhutto, Musharraf's most powerful foe in the elections, were part of a rapidly evolving political crisis. 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 state 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.

_______________________

Associated Press reporter Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

The Bhutto Assassination

I just finished reading a Symposium on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto at the National Review Online. Those invited to write an analysis about the assassination were Jonathan Foreman, Sumit Ganguly, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Victor Davis Hanson, Mansoor Ijaz, Stanley Kurtz, James S. Robbins, Bill Roggio and Henry Sokolski.

As of this writing there is only guessing who is directly responsible for the assassination from the region of the world in which the Religion of Peace is the dominant religion.

The consensus of the Symposium was really mixed. The mentioned culprits: al Qaeda and allied Islamists, Taliban and allied Islamists, Infiltrating terrorist Islamists in the Pakistan Military, Infiltrating terrorist Islamist in the Pakistan version of a Secret Service, sympathizing Pakistan Secret Service of Islamists itself, Pervez Musharraf and a sympathetic element of the Pakistan military.

The only agreeing link is Islamism, the apparent dominant voice of Mohammedanism of the modern Mohammedan dominated lands.

My guess is that Bhutto caused a temporary alliance of all of the above to cause Bhutto’s death.

Despite a checkered past in past Pakistani politics, her current presence was rallying an opposition that rejected both Islamism and the pro-Western ruling oligarch dictatorship within the Pakistani military. A successful Bhutto would be a huge challenge to the death cult idealism of the Islamist terrorists and a huge challenge to ruling by semi-military fiat by the later.

In essence all Pakistani factions opposing Bhutto’s rise stood to gain with her death.

America is in the uncomfortable Machiavellian position of being forced to choose between two repressive elements in Pakistan: The Pakistan military and Islamist terrorists. Of course it would be global suicide to choose America’s primary enemies thus America will be forced to put its strength behind Musharraf and the military.

I have the impression that Musharraf and the pro-Western elements of the military are becoming more and more unpopular with the Pakistani people. Thus the people that are not happy with Musharraf are being driven to the Islamists even though they may not be Islamists themselves.

This portends a Sunni version of the Shia inspired Iranian Revolution. If an Islamist revolution triumphs over a pro-Western Pakistani military, then Islamists would control Pakistan’s already established nuclear arsenal.

The Shah of Iran overthrown by Khomeini was extremely solid behind America. The Shah even tried to Westernize Iran with a bit of success even though the regime was repressive. The Shah was deserted by a deluded President Carter who felt the end of the Shah would bring democracy to Iran. Oops! Selling out the Shah brought Sharia Law and a repressive regime that made the Shah look like a Western Saint.

Bhutto’s death sets America up for the dreaded repetition of history. Oh yes, a Democratic Party Presidential victory will guarantee handing a nuclear arsenal over to Islamist terrorists just as Carter did in the ‘70’s.

JRH

Possible Outcomes of Pakistani Crisis Might ...

Possible Outcomes of Pakistani Crisis Might Even Change a Democrat's Mind

Pervez Musharraf has imposed martial law in Pakistan. The official reason is because radical murdering Islamist terrorists are trying to bring their Theo-Political ideology as the rule of law and depose Musharraf.

I am certain there is an element of truth to the official reason; however I am betting the actual reason is elements outside of the military within the regime are trying to depose Musharraf, specifically Pakistan’s version of the Supreme Court.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court was about to rule on the legality of Musharraf’s election as President while retaining his spot as the head of the Pakistani military. The talk was the Court ruling was not going to happen to Musharraf’s benefit.

Although I am certain Musharraf would have used the military to brush off such a judicial ruling it would have angered the people in such a way that rioting might lead to sympathy to the radical Islamists followed by a Khomeini style people’s revolution.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and eight other judges refused to support Musharraf’s “emergency order.” Musharraf’s response was to depose the Chief Justice and rename another to replace him – Abdul Hameed Dogar.

Then there is the position of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who returned to Pakistan recently under a deal with Musharraf to bring back democracy to Pakistan while siding with her families old military enemies to draw the people away from radical Islamism. Bhutto is a secular Socialist Muslim.

Bhutto officially complained about the Martial Law order; however I sense she understands her future in Pakistan will only occur with the military’s support combined with a hoped for elective support from the Pakistani people. Bhutto would be executed summarily if the likes of al Qaeda or the Taliban got their hands on her.

What was America’s official reaction? This from BBC News:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the declaration of emergency rule was "highly regrettable" and called upon Pakistan to have free and fair elections.

In essence the US response was the politically correct response; a deposed Musharraf would be a huge hit on America’s war effort in the Middle East. It would be tough for America to lose an ally in Pakistan which could happen if Musharraf was deposed. There is the possibility that the Pakistan military might simply replace Musharraf with another top dog general and continue the policy of Musharraf under a different military political Administration.

Again though, a deposed Musharraf would pour prestige and allegiance of the Pakistani people to the radical Islamists. This could lead to a similar scenario of a Khomeini style revolution in Pakistan that the military could not stop without outright butchery and genocide.

What is the worst that could happen? O not much, a nuclear armed Wahhabi-Sunni-Taliban-al-Qaeda Islamist nation that hates America. The only plus would be incredible Sunni power probably would end the friendship with Shi’ite Iran who has no doubt been aiding the Waziristan Sunni radicals. I also suspect the old socialists in India will change their minds in rejecting America’s proffered hand of friendship and join in with American against radical Islamists in Pakistan and Iran.

Muslim Pakistan and Hindi India are nearly blood enemies and I suspect India could not stand for Mohammedan nuclear proliferation in the Middle East than America or Europe (although for different reasons).

Thus what Musharraf has done may be reported with media calm of just another dictatorial move in Pakistan; however I suspect the American military and policy strategists are scrambling to develop multiple alternative measures to choose from depending on which way the Pakistani crisis swings.

Benazir Bhutto Rankles Pakistani Islamofascists by HER Return

Apparently America and Britain are counting on female Benazir Bhutto to share power with Musharraf to counter a growing Islamist sentiment in Pakistan.

According to the Telegraph a huge rally of support gathered for Bhutto in Karachi.

Man that has to chap the hide of intolerant male domineering women as chattel Islamofascists when they see a female welcomed as a popular leader. And there is more than the popularity; Bhutto is at least giving lip service to another hated concept of Islamofascists – democracy.

Is Al-Qaeda Psyops Slowly Taking Pakistan Piecemeal?

For those of you who do not follow the news very much or possibly you follow only selective portions of the news because in this day and age local political and geopolitical news is so immense that Joe American must pick and choose the news to follow as one perceives the effect the information has on our interests or lives.

Thus here is a tidbit of news you may have heard or not heard of: old Usama bin Laden (UBL) from location unknown but probably the Waziristan region of Northern Pakistan created an audio message to Pakistanis proclaiming President Pervez Musharraf as an a kafir (infidel) and a shirk (polytheist). Due to this proclamation Pakistanis should rise up and depose and assassinate Musharraf.

Also the audio addressed the Pakistan military to stand down and do nothing as the people rise up to through out the American loving apostate Musharraf.

Since the thrill of hearing UBL for the first time in years is wearing off the news coverage of the implications of how this may affect Pakistan and vis-a-vie the United States has somewhat worn off.

Steve Schippert writing for ThreatsWatch.org offers a remarkable analysis of Pakistan’s potential future which would not be good for America. Schippert believes Al-Qaeda has been operating a patient campaign to win the allegiance of various tribal territories in Pakistan. The Musharraf signing away of government control of Waziristan is an example of Al-Qaeda/Taliban interests gaining autonomous victory over the Pakistan military.

Here is something to think about that Schippert may not have known when writing his Pakistan threat analysis: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto intends to return to Pakistan after being in exile since 1999. Benazir is the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Ali Bhutto served both as President and Prime Minister of Pakistan. Ali Bhutto was quite popular with the Pakistani people, however the will to retain power led to a clash of wills with other ethnic elites in Pakistan led to Ali Bhutto’s demise. In a dubious trial that was considered rigged by Bhutto ethnic enemies found him guilty of corruption and murder. The military dictator of the time General Zia-ul-Hak made the execution was carried out.

Daughter Benazir Bhutto has also been popular, yet unproven accusations by the Bhutto family enemies had her deposed for charges of corruption. There is an underlying implication that Benazir’s exile is ending to counter the growing popularity of radical Islam in Pakistan. The Pakistan military and Musharraf have not publicly welcomed her back. Nawaz Sharif is another deposed Prime Minister who was sent back into exile to Saudi Arabia has Benazir not to trust Musharraf. Time will tell just how desperate Musharraf is.