Islamabad - Two Pakistani militants arrested in connection
with the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto have
confessed that were seeking revenge for the death of a comrade killed
in a commando assault on Islamabad's Red Mosque in July 2007, a
police official said Wednesday.
The confessions of Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat, who were arrested last
week and admitted planning the gun and suicide bombing attack on
Bhutto on December 27 in the city of Rawalpindi, calls into question
government claims that the attack was ordered by a Taliban commander
in north-west Pakistan allegedly linked to al-Qaeda.
In the most detailed account of an assassination that rocked
Pakistan to its core, Abdul Majeed, head of a Pakistani police
investigation team, told a press conference late Wednesday that Gul
had been in close contact with militant friends in Pakistan's
volatile North-West Frontier province (NWFP) since last summer.
Gul volunteered to organize attacks on government and military
targets in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad, after learning
that a fellow militant was killed in the Red Mosque incident, Majeed
said.
Gul then organized a team including two suicide bombers to kill
Bhutto after learning she would be addressing an election rally in
Rawalpindi's Liaquat Park.
'The motive for carrying out the suicide attack on Bhutto was
because she was returning to Pakistan with the support of a foreign
power,' Majeed told reporters, apparently referring to the US, which
helped broker the deal with embattled Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf on Bhutto's return home from self-exile.
Majeed said Gul posted bombers on the park's two main gates, one
of whom, identified for the first time as Balil, got close enough to
Bhutto to fire three shots at her with a pistol before blowing
himself up within two metres of her vehicle.
British investigators have concluded that Bhutto, who was standing
through the vehicle's rooftop escape hatch and waving to supporters,
died from cracking her skull after recoiling from the blast.
The other bomber, who Majeed identified as Ikram Ullah, did not
blow himself up as the initial attack was successful. Ullah fled
Rawalpindi and went to the NWFP's tribal areas, where the Taliban,
al-Qaeda and local militant groups have safe havens.
Majeed said Gul had organized at least two other suicide attacks
on Pakistani military targets in 2007, one of which killed 11 people.
He also said Gul provided both bombers in the Bhutto assassination
with suicide vests, and personally gave Balil the pistol and a pair
of dark sunglasses. Video footage and photographs clearly showed the
attacker wearing dark sunglasses and pointing a pistol at Bhutto.
But Majeed declined to answer when asked whether Gul confessed to
planning the attack under the orders of Taliban commander Baitullah
Mehsud, who Musharraf and US intelligence officials have claimed was
behind the hit.
'We are still investigating this,' he told reporters. 'As soon as
there is some progress, we will share information with you.'
Bhutto's assassination has been mired in controversy because of
conflicting government accounts of how she died and who was
responsible.
Her family and political supporters claim that rogue elements
within Musharraf's government killed her to prevent her from winning
an unprecedented third term as prime minister in elections now
rescheduled for next Monday.
Musharraf insists that Mehsud ordered Bhutto's assassination and
said that the Taliban commmander had trained hundreds of suicide
bombers at his base in the tribal areas to target the government,
military and political figures.
In late January, authorities arrested a would-be teenage bomber,
along with his handler, who reportedly confessed to being the next in
line to attack Bhutto had she survived the Rawalpindi attack.
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