The killing of twice-premier Benazir Bhutto last Thursday is being turned by the world media into a Pythagorean mystery, much to the sadistic pleasure of the Pakistani establishment, including coup leader-turned-president Gen. ( R ) Pervez Musharraf.
As Pakistan presented the look of a ghost country, the guilt, shame and fear that was writ large on Musharraf’s face after Bhutto’s death when he addressed the nation on television to announce a three-day mourning make some things clear.
The deadly cocktail of powerful groups who wanted Benazir Bhutto, 54, annihilated include serving and retired generals, present and past intelligence chiefs, international smugglers with billions of dollars in their coffers, son of at least one former military dictator, investigations by this correspondent reveals.
All of these groups in Pakistan are closely allied with terrorist mastermind bin Laden—Al Qaeda and Pakistani establishment are two sides of the same coin.
The same elements were responsible for the deaths of secular leaders from the renegade province of Baluchistan, former governor and chief minister Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti last year and former member of the provincial assembly and guerilla leader Mir Balaa’ch Marri last month.
People who stand to gain from Bhutto’s death comprise Musharraf himself—though on the face of it, he unwillingly accepted a power-sharing formula handed to him from Washington– , Intelligence Bureau chief Brig ( R ) Ejaz Shah, former Inter Services Intelligence chief Gen. ( R ) Hamid Gul [who blames Benazir Bhutto for not letting him become the army chief on U.S. bidding. Not many people know, Gul is Musharraf’s alter ego.], former member of national assembly Ejazul Haq, and international smuggler Daud Ebrahim.
Unbeknownst to Bhutto, as her relationship with U.S administration officials warmed up, these dangerous players in Pakistan politics with whom bin Laden has solid ties with were closely following her moves. From her plane trip with Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad, the permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations, to Colorado to her phone talk with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just a week before her arrival in Karachi, she was on the radar of Pakistani intelligence and the terrorists alike.
Pakistan has misled the world to believe it was incapable of arresting bin Laden and Taliba’an ruler Mullah Omar. But after Bhutto met Khalilzad, a Kakar tribesman originally from Afghanistan, Musharraf secretly met an Afghan tribesman from the Ghilzai tribe, Khalilzad’s chief nemesis, ousted Taliba’an “amir”, one-eyed Mullah Omar in the garrison city of Quetta, bordering Afghanistan.
“Musharraf met Mullah Omar before and after his visit to Saudi Arabia within less than three weeks,” one senior official in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan said.
It is not surprising the city where Bhutto died is the headquarters of Pakistan Army—the world’s fifth largest army, with nuclear arms. Soldiers of Pakistani army chant Allah O’ Akbar [Allah is the Greatest, which in other words means rule of Islam over the entire world] as part of their daily drill in Rawalpindi.
Additionally, Rawalpindi has the