In a press conference held on Friday, the Pakistani government laid the blame for the combined shooting and suicide bomb attack that killed Bhutto on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Shocker of all shocks, just a day after the fatal rally, Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said investigators had resolved the "whole mystery" behind the opposition leader's killing.
The government claims it intercepted a conversation in which al Qaeda-linked militant leader Baitullah Mehsud allegedly congratulated his people for carrying out the attack.
An Interior Minister spokesperson, Javed Cheema said Mehsud was also behind the
Here is a translation of the purported conversation involving Baitullah Mehsud released by the
I am shocked that the Pakistani Interior Ministry claims to have resolved the “whole mystery” of the Bhutto assassination just a day later. I am shocked that they have the gall to claim they have “irrefutable evidence” so soon in this case when they had not moved forward at all on the Karachi bomb blast investigation in over two months!
Sources can’t seem to agree about whether Bhutto died from a gun shot, shrapnel or a lever in her car’s sunroof. A surgeon who treated Bhutto says she died from shrapnel that hit her on the right side of her skull. The Interior Minister claims that neither bullet nor shrapnel hit her, and that the lever of her sunroof pierced her skull.
There is still confusion about exactly how many people were involved in the attack; whether the shooter was the suicide bomber also, or another person followed up the marksman’s three gun shots by detonating the bomb. There has also been talk of a person, presumably an attacker, suddenly approaching Bhutto’s armored car on a motorcycle moments before the bomb went off.
Amid all these conflicting reports of how the attack transpired, I’m shocked by the arrogance with which the Pakistani government is pushing its agenda to blame al Qaeda. I’m not questioning the possibility that Mehsud really was behind the attack, I simply don’t trust that the Musharraf regime is invested in bringing the real culprits to justice. I am greatly saddened by how it took the government no time to help realize my greatest fear…that it would be unwilling to conduct a serious, independent investigation into the death of a great leader.
P.S. How many of you believe the transcript of Mehsud’s conversation is real?
1 comments:
first!
Not sure if the words "great leader" would precisely describe Benazir. Actually Mushy bhai definitely isn't much better. I'm not big on politics but didn't both of them make state at time t+1 worse off than the state at time t?
She was just another head of the state.
I'm also shocked at how the 'investigators' were able to capture the dialogue which was so brief and exact. It's not possible for any Pakistani intelligence gathering agency to be THAT high tech... unless the bad guys were communicating via unencrypted VoIP through a Tor network, but even then... jeez. Hey, miracles happen, right?
Wireless broadcast signal? unencrypted?
They could've bugged the POTS... but okay ... nevermind... this is going to blow up my mind.
Al Qaeda is supposed to be pretty high tech and difficult to find, isn't it?
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