ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 29, 2007
Pakistan: Al Qaeda Behind Bhutto Killing
Government Claims Purported Transcript Of Militant Praising "Brave Boys Who Killed Her"
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Play CBS Video Video Bhutto's Death Cause Debated Pakistan's government has released new video of the attack that killed Benazir Bhutto. Officials claim that she died from a skull fracture, not from gunfire or shrapnel. Sheila MacVicar reports.
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Video Pakistan, A Country In Chaos Pakistan's government insists that parliamentary elections will be held as scheduled. But in the turmoil following Benazir Bhutto's death, it's not clear if that will be possible. Lara Logan reports.
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Video Eye To Eye: Bhutto's Security "Only On The Web": Former Benazir Bhutto advisor Husain Haqqani speaks to CBS News' David Martin about concerns of inadequate security for the slain Pakistani opposition leader.
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Benazir Bhutto pledged to redouble Pakistan's fight against Islamic militancy and was despised by Taliban-style radicals backed by tribes along the border with Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zubair)
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Photo Essay Bhutto Killed In Bombing The bomb went off just minutes after Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto spoke to thousands of supporters.
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Photo Essay Bhutto: Her Career in Photos From Mikhail Gorbachev to Teri Hatcher, Bhutto met everyone
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 Qaeda 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.
But the government's revelations raise more questions than they answer, reports CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar. If they could record this conversation, why were they unable to reach the suspects in time to stop the attack?
Cheema described Mehsud as an al Qaeda 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 Qaeda fighters are also active.
In the transcript, Mehsud gives his location as Makin, a town in South Waziristan.
The spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud, dismissed the allegations as "government propaganda."
"We strongly deny it. Baitullah Mehsud is not involved in the killing of Benazir Bhutto," the spokesman, Maulana Mohammed Umer, told The Associated Press by phone.
Bhutto's party also rejected the claims, saying Mehsud through emissaries had previously told Bhutto he was not involved in an earlier attempt on her life.
This fall, Mehsud 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.
One of Bhutto's first priorities if she were elected president would have been to do something about the "privileged sanctuaries" the Taliban and al Qaeda used along the Afghanistan border, journalist and friend of Bhutto Arnaud de Borchgrave told CBS' The Early Show.
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.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 101 CommentsPosted by woodjd42 at 05:19 AM : Dec 29, 2007
You''''re an idiot
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Posted by jowand at 06:01 AM : Dec 29, 2007
An Idiot?
The only idiot is anywone that would believe a word bush/chaney say. If their mouth is moving they are lying.
We are a nation of total idiots! We are marching toward a police state with Cheney in charge. Of course those of you who don''t have a brain, I see there are plenty of reality shows coming up to keep you "informed".
the political turmoil unleashed by bush policies;
- attack, then abandonment of afghanistan
- unwarranted invaison of iraq
- threats against iran
have all served to distabilize and to increase radical political movements within all these countries and internationally.
albeit the afghanistan attack was justified by the presence of OBL, the lack will shown by bush in relation to saudi arabia, home to the 911 terrorists and a major backer of extremely orthodox Wahaabi brand of Islam, stands in stark contrast. The Iraq Study Group asserted that Saudi private citizens, and probably a few members of the Saudi royal family, have been financing the Sunni opposition in Iraq. This is the same opposition that is targeting U.S. troops.
Iraq, subjected to a pre-emptive war whose justifications have been proven false, has greatly inflamed the Muslim world adding fuel to the fire in Pakistan and elsewhere.
Iran has been threatened with military attack, and even the specter of nuclear war was evoked by bush himself.
Without doubt the continued use of military options has not served the security of the US or the world.
Pandora''s box will free many more unholy surprises if these mistaken policies are not halted.
Good question. Some of their apologists have been reduced to lashing out wildly in all directions, such as we are witnessing here from "speakinup".
This poster appears to be in their final throes.
Posted by FeelFree1 at 02:00 AM : Dec 29, 2007
Speaking about lashing out wildly, and incoherently, that''s all you ever do.
Posted by woodjd42 at 05:19 AM : Dec 29, 2007
You''re an idiot
Why are you assuming that Al-Quaeda is responsible for her death? Because Musharraf and bush say so? Al-Quaeda is saying they had nothing to do with it.
Musharraf had a lot more to gain from her death and as head of security he denied her proper security.
Besides, the creditibllty of Al-Quaeda, bush and Musharraf are about equal. Maybe even Al-Quaeda having a little more.
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Posted by j-whitman at 11:14 PM : Dec 28, 2007
I think that your daughter staying home and raising kids to be responsible adults is an awesome use of her capabilities. Your grandchildren are very lucky.
+ report abuse
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i kinda figured that a terrorist victory would drag you out to the light..so how is the terrorist propaganda business going?
Re: "Why are all these draft dodging chicken hawk Cons such chicken s*its??? Oh, " Al Qaeda is coming to get us, we need Bush to protect us... " yadda yadda."
Good question. Some of their apologists have been reduced to lashing out wildly in all directions, such as we are witnessing here from "speakinup".
This poster appears to be in their final throes.
Little chance for a secular democracy here in the near future, I am afraid.
I gotta log off.
Keep both hands on the keyboard - leave rosie until later when the test pattern comes on - that way you can type faster - kay ?
Now the election can go on with absolutely no opposition leader.
As we are at the mercy of the media and propaganda artists for news, no one really knows who orchestrated this. She may have been targeted by any or many militia (War Lords) including Al Quaeda or by Musharraf himself.
The fact remains that the US plan to wrest some power away from Musharraf with a power sharing deal has failed. Wouldn''t be surprised to hear some leaders start banging the war drums for direct US attacks on parts of Pakistan. But now, since Musharraf is also playing the blame "AL Quaeda for all" card and touting himself as the champion against terror, we have no reall option but to at least feign support for this dictator.
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