Islamabad - The Pakistani government Monday rejected
ex-premier Benazir Bhutto's suggestion that foreign experts should be
involved in the probe into last Thursday's suicide attack on her
procession.
'Our experts are conducting the investigations and they are fully
capable of doing it,' Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told reporters
in Islamabad.
A suicide bomber blew himself up on Thursday in a procession that
Bhutto was leading after arriving from Dubai to end an eight-year
self-imposed exile, killing 140 people and injuring more than 500.
Following the attack, she blamed Islamic militants and their
supporters within the government and demanded on Saturday an
independent inquiry led by investigators from the United States and
Britain.
'They have anti-terrorism experts who have the technical expertise
to investigate attacks of this nature,' she said, adding Pakistan's
security agencies had been infiltrated by 'militants and Al Qaeda.'
'We have no intentions even of considering the proposal,' Sherpao
said.
But Bhutto repeated her call on Monday while talking to the
journalists after visiting the tomb of Pakistan's founder, Mohammed
Ali Jinnah.
'The chief of the PML-Q (the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid)
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is saying that the Pakistan Peoples Party
has itself staged the attack. In the face of such insensible
statement a foreign-experts-led inquiry is essential,' she said.
Pakistan's Islamic militants, especially those in tribal areas
bordering Afghanistan, are angry over Bhutto's recent power-sharing
deal with President Pervez Musharraf under which both intend to form
a liberal alliance against the extremist forces in the country.
Washington and London have backed the alliance, believing the
support from the most political leader would boost the efforts of
Musharraf, a key US ally in what it calls it's war on terrorism.
They also hope the alliance will help maintain stability in the
nuclear-armed state and control Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in
tribal region from launching assaults on international forces in
Afghanistan.
'By siding with him (Musharraf), Benazir was making herself a
target for assassination,' cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan
said in comments published by the British Daily Telegraph on Sunday.
Thursday's tragedy was inevitable, Khan added.
However, Bhutto said the militants wanted to dictate their agenda
through violence.
'The terrorists should lay their weapons. If they have some
differences they should resolve them peacefully, and leave the issues
to be settled by the public opinion,' she said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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