Pakistan - Charges In Bhutto Death Investigation

By Cernig

Pakistan has formally charged Tehrik e-Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and four other who also remain uncaptured with the assassination of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.

But they haven't, apparently, formally charged two people who they have in actual custody and who supposedly confessed to their part in the crime.

Weird.

If I were a cynical sort, I'd say they'd deliberately charged the people least likely to ever stand up in court, with evidence and counter-evidence, while dropping a pair of possibly-tortured dupes down the memory hole.

Two Confess To Arming Bhutto Assassin

By Cernig

CNN reports that Pakistani police are claiming a breakthrough in the Bhutto assassination trail.

Two suspects arrested last week confessed to a Pakistani judge Wednesday that they helped arm the suicide bomber blamed for assassinating Benazir Bhutto, an Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN.

The two men -- identified as Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat -- were part of a five-man team behind the former prime minister's assassination, including the suicide bomber, a senior police investigator told CNN.

Both were at the Rawalpindi park where Bhutto was assassinated on December 27 as she left a political campaign rally, said investigator Chaudhry Abdul Majeed.

The other two suspects -- one of them named Karamullah -- are still at large, he said.

The two suspects told the judge in Wednesday's court appearance that they provided the suicide bomber with a house, transportation, a pistol, and the suicide jacket he allegedly used in the attack that killed the opposition leader and nearly two dozen others, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

Hmmmm. I'd be happier about the provenance of these confessions if Pakistan didn't have such a poor record on torturing detainees.

I'd also be far happier if these confessions weren't simply parroting Pakistani government propaganda.

Mr Gul allegedly told police he had wanted to "avenge" the killing of his close friend during the military raid on the Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, in July 2007.

"Their motive for attacking Bhutto was that she was coming to Pakistan at the behest of a foreign power," Mr Abdul Majid said.

Bhutto didn't order the assault on the Red Mosque - Musharraf did. And it was Musharraf's government who first and loudest protested Bhutto's return at US behest, not the Taliban.

Scotland Yard - Bhutto Died From Head injury In Blast

By Cernig

British investigators have concluded their look at the cause of benazir Bhutto's death. The Guardian has the summary report.

In essence, all the evidence indicates that one suspect has fired the shots before detonating an improvised explosive device. At the time of the attack, this person was standing close to the rear of Ms Bhutto's vehicle. The blast caused a violent collision between her head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle, causing a severe and fatal head injury.

The team from Scotland Yard noted that the lack of an autopsy and hosing down of the incident area within an hour of the blast complicated their investigation, but have forwarded this conclusion with a high degree of certainty, working from other evidence. The PPP have refused to accept the findings. "She died from a bullet injury, this was and is our position," said Sherry Rahman, a spokeswoman for Bhutto's party.

They also say Bhutto's death was the work of a lone assassin, who both fired the shots and detonated the bomb which killed her.

However, they were not asked by the Pakistani authorities to investigate who might be responsible for ordering her death, and on that they remain silent. Both the pakistani authorities and the CIA have said that Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, ordered her killing. However, there are considerable reasons to doubt that allegation.

The Usual Suspects

By Cernig

The CIA has placed the blame for Benazir Bhutto's assassination on a combination of Al Qaeda, America's primary enemy, and South Waziristan tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's primary internal enemy. How convenient.

Offering the most definitive public assessment by a U.S. intelligence official, Hayden said Bhutto was killed by fighters allied with Mehsud, a tribal leader in northwestern Pakistan, with support from al-Qaeda's terrorist network. That view mirrors the Pakistani government's assertions.

The same alliance between local and international terrorists poses a grave risk to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, Hayden said in 45-minute interview with The Washington Post. "What you see is, I think, a change in the character of what's going on there," he said. "You've got this nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between al-Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups."

But there's some question over the accuracy of hayden's pronouncement.

"This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Hayden said.

...Some administration officials outside the agency who deal with Pakistani issues were less conclusive, with one calling the assertion "a very good assumption."

One of the officials said there was no "incontrovertible" evidence to prove or rebut the assessment.

So not everyone agrees with Hayden's assessment. Why could that be? Here comes the outrageous spin which is more important than accuracy:

Hayden said that the United States has "not had a better partner in the war on terrorism than the Pakistanis." The turmoil of the past few weeks has only deepened that cooperation, he said, by highlighting "what are now even more clearly mutual and common interests."

Oh, I get it - fixing the intelligence around the policy again, rather than admitting the policy of supporting and arming Musharraf's regime was an utter failure. Spin rather than actually addressing questions about Musharraf's government's catch and release of terrorist bigwigs and failure to even chase Bin Laden (who supposedly needs dialysis) or Mullah Omar (MI6 even provided his telephone number and address at an ISI safe house in Quetta).

Same old, same old. If you're a despot with a faux-democratic smokescreen, willing to mouth platitudes about the War on Some Terror and buy expensive military toys, you've no better friend than the Bush administration.

Update Looks like I'm not the only one who is highly sceptical about Hayden's pronouncement. Larisa at Raw Story reports that several former and current officials and intelligence agents from both the US and Britain don't believe it either. Don't bother holding your breath for the Scotland Yard report either. the Pakistani authorities have banned them from looking into who might be responsible and told them to restrict their investigations to only the exact cause of her death.

Bhutto Bomb Aimed At Gunman's Silence?

By Cernig

Larisa Alexandrovna has been talking to former U.S. spooks, who say that the real target of the suicide bomb at Bhutto's assassination may well have been the gunman.

Three former US intelligence officials have told Raw Story that not only is the gunman dead, he was likely the actual target of the suicide bomber.

According to a former high ranking US intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the information, the US intelligence community understands the gunman to have been killed in the blast following Mrs. Bhutto's assassination.

"He was killed, probably not knowing that the suicide bomber was there," said this source. "We don't know for sure if the two men arrived together. We do know that the assassin died in the explosion, and was probably meant to."

Several other US intelligence officials concur that the bomber was likely "inserted" to "clean up" evidence of the shooting, including eliminating the gunman.

When asked why it was important to determine the relationship between the gunman and the suicide bomber, one former CIA officer explained that such details are the key to understanding what happened, how it happened, and who was ultimately responsible. Such details also enable investigators to document patterns and methods used, in order to determine if a terrorist attack has indeed taken place or something else has occurred.

The official narrative that Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was responsible for Bhutto's death is fraught with difficulties - not least that he has denied it while calling for an independent international investigation or that no-one can independently verify the alleged transcript of his congratulating a minion by telephone for the assassination. Even if Mehsud was responsible, he's been pardoned by Musharraf three times already and Pakistani intelligence's links to the Taliban and other Islamist groups are fairly well documented. It takes a lot of determined looking the other way - as the Bush administration has done these past years - to ignore those ties. Musharraf isn't even looking for Bin Laden and his military is adamant that no foreign troops or intelligence agents will be allowed on Pakistani soil to conduct anti-terror operations or to help secure Pakistan's nukes.

The very muddled - perhaps deliberately so - narrative from the Pakistani authorities about how Bhutto died has also added to suspicions of a cover-up. That wasn't helped when Musharraf admitted that Bhutto may have been shot but said that it was her own fault for sticking her head up, not a failure to provide adequate security. British investigators are now looking for Bhutto's headscarf, in the hope that it may settle the question of how she died. There's a dearth of evidence because the crime scene was hosed down within hours and no autopsy was performed.

The Washington Post reports today that all of this is fuelling ethnic tension in Pakistan - where the Sindhi minority, from which Bhutto's family comes, are increasingly anoyed at the Punjabi majority who also make up most of the Army. It's a recipe for civil war in the maiking, but the West is in a very weak position right now with respect to Pakistan. Back to Larisa:

at this point, the US has “no workable solution” and cannot discontinue support for Musharraf, given the options.

“We are being held hostage to Musharraf's whim,” said one former intelligence official.

“What options do we have now? None. Under Musharraf, al Qaeda has grown. The tribal sheiks have also grown. It is a mess and there is not a damn thing we can do about it.”

Can Bush at least stop selling the General-in-plainclothes advanced weaponry (e.g. nuke-capable fighters, anti-tank missiles, airborne early warning platforms) more useful against his neighbours than extremists, even if it does help line US arms manufacturers pockets with US taxpayers' money?

Only Half An Investigation

By Cernig

Today, Pakistan's Musharraf signalled in the clearest possible way that the investigation into Benazir Bhutto's death will be only half an investigation - with the most important questions already answered the way he wants them whether Scotland Yard is involved or not.

President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that uncertainty remained about the exact cause of Benazir Bhutto's death, despite an initial government report that she was killed when a bomb blast slammed her head into her vehicle.

"One should not give a statement that's 100 percent final. That's the flaw that we suffer from," Musharraf said at a news conference, noting that more evidence was emerging about the attack. "We needed more experience, maybe more forensic and technical experience that our people don't have. Therefore I thought Scotland Yard may be more helpful."

Musharraf said he also reached out to British investigators for assistance to dispel accusations that Pakistan's military or intelligence services were involved.

"We don't mind going to any extent, as nobody is involved from the government or agency side," he said.

...He conceded there were shortcomings in Pakistan's handling of the case, including the hosing down of the bomb site hours after the attack, widely seen as undermining a detailed forensic examination. But he dismissed any suggestion there was a plan to conceal evidence.

"I'm not fully satisfied. I will accept that: cleaning the area. Why did they do that? If you are meaning they did that by design I would not say no. It's just inefficiency, people thinking things have to be cleared, traffic has to go through," he said.

He's so sure of that, despite everything, even before the investigators from the UK arrive? There's been a clean-up operation.

The question of who ordered Bhutto's death, then, is already settled in Musharraf's view and the narrative on that will not be questioned by subsequent investigations. Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is to be blamed, despite his denying involvement and himself calling for a UN investigation, despite US intelligence misgivings about Pakistan's claims, despite obvious questions about regime complicity raised by Bhutto herself before her death and by others all along.

Instead, investigations will focus on the question of exactly how Bhutto died during an assassination attempt which succeeded in killing its target - a spurious distraction entirely manufactured by the Pakistani regime to distract from the more important questions that will now be swept under the carpet.

And the elections will be delayed by six weeks, despite both main opposition parties calling for them to go ahead as planned. The delay benefits Musharraf's proxies and supporters most - which is quite possibly the point of the whole exercise. Musharraf's supporters in the West would hardly have swallowed such a delay for any lesser reason.

Pakistan Ministry Backtracks On Sunroof Claim (Updated)

By Cernig

I know, I said I was taking today off. But the latest from CNN really needs a mention - the Pakistani Interior Ministry is backtracking on its claim that a sunroof lever killed Benazir Bhutto.

The government also published a reward offer in several national newspapers to anyone who could identify two suspects from the killing.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told CNN the ministry will wait for the findings from forensic investigators before making a conclusion about her cause of death.

Cheema said he based his statement Friday about the sunroof latch "on the initial investigations and the reports by the medical doctors" who treated her at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

"I was just narrating the facts, you know, and nothing less nothing more," Cheema said.

"There's no intention to conceal anything from the people of Pakistan," an Interior Ministry news release said.

And if you believe that, I've got a bridge for sale. The medical report made no mention of the sunroof lever and the investigation is hampered - probably deliberately - by the fact that the crime scene was hosed down with high-pressure water jets within hours of the bomb blast, destroying invaluable evidence.

The Interior Ministry has also produced a wanted poster showing the two men suspected of carrying out Bhutto's assassination and offering a total of just over $160,000 for information identifying them.

Meanwhile, reports and rumors keep surfacing. James Joyner today mentions a McClatchy report that says Bhutto was killed just before she was to reveal evidence of how Musharraf intended stealing the elections to two U.S. senators. The claim comes from Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of Bhutto's pary, but there seems to be no attempt to make the evidence public now. I find it impossible to believe their was only one copy and that it perished, somehow, with Bhutto herself - so I'm writing this one off as political manouvering by the PPP. Even though it's probably true that Musharraf intended to rig the election.

James links that story to another by UPI that claims various intelligence sources say the killing was arranged by "lower- and middle-level officers" of Pakistan's secretive ISI who are "sympathizers of the ultra-conservative Islamists with ties to the jihadis". The report names no names, it's all anonymous sources - but again that's likely true as far as it goes. However, it would be wrong to say that leaves Musharraf sitting squeaky clean on the side of the anti-Islamists as James seems to think. The article goes on to say:

Bhutto's main fear, according to a well-placed source in the intelligence community, was that retired Brig. Gen. Ijaz Shah of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau would prove a grave threat to her.

Ijaz Shah is one of the senior Musharraf aides who was named in Bhutto's letter to Britain's Foreign Secretary before her death and it's likely he figured in other letters she sent in anticipation of her assassination. He was once a senior figure in the ISI and is now Director General of Pakistan's civilian Intelligence Bureau. (The others named were Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, who is also the cousin of PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. The latter made a bid to be interim PM for Musharraf in the run up to the elections but was unsuccessful.)

There were rumors out of the U.S. back in June that Ijaz Shah was to be fired for undermining Musharraf's rule - which Pakistani analysts found very odd since he's always been a staunch loyalist. Needless to say, he wasn't fired. He was once nominated by Musharraf as High Commissioner to Australia, only to have his nomination embarrassingly rejected by the Australian Government because of his previous involvement in ISI sponsorship of Islamist terror groups.

Update Larisa Alexandrovna joins up some obvious dots, and includes this:

Pakistan -under the Musharraf regime - continues to given aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, the very people who attacked this nation on 9/11. Prior to the attack on my country, Pakistan's then-chief of the ISI wired money to one of the 9/11 hijackers and had an American journalist murdered:

"If the 9-11 Commission is really looking for a smoking gun, it should look no further than at Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, the director of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at the time.
In early October 2001, Indian intelligence learned that Mahmoud had ordered flamboyant Saeed Sheikh - the convicted mastermind of the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl - to wire US$100,000 from Dubai to one of hijacker Mohamed Atta's two bank accounts in Florida."

Saeed Sheikh's handler at the ISI was Brig. Gen Ijaz Shah.

Update The Hindustan Times reports that the Pakistani government are walking back the narrative even further:

In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has "apologised" for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack.

Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to "forgive and ignore" comments made by his ministry's spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People's Party as "lies" and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

The Interior Minister made the apology during a briefing for Pakistani newspaper editors on Monday.

However, they're sticking to the part about Bhutto's death being largely due to her own bravery or foolhardiness.

Earlier, Prime Minister Soomro tried to defend the interior ministry's spokesman, saying he was just relaying facts that had been told to him, especially about the cause of death.

"We are conducting an investigation and all TV footage, all evidence, that would be available will help in reaching a definite conclusion," Soomro told the editors.

But the editors asked more questions, especially with reference to the medical report of doctors of Rawalpindi General Hospital who treated Bhutto.

They "emphatically pointed out that the report quoted by the spokesman never mentioned the cause of the head injury" to Bhutto. The report only said there was a skull fracture which caused cardio-pulmonary arrest, the editors pointed out. Soomro then referred the issue to Interior Minister Khan. He explained in detail the security measures taken and asserted that Bhutto had a bulletproof vehicle which could not be damaged by a bomb or bullets.

Once she was inside it, she was secure and police vans were trying to keep her car clear of other vehicles. But when she emerged from the sun-roof she exposed herself to an attack, Khan said.

"Nothing would have happened to her even if every one in the world had wanted to hurt her," the Minister added. Soomro was repeatedly asked whether he would allow a foreign investigation into the murder but he asserted that Pakistani experts were competent to do the job.

His denial raised questions from the editors about the offer made by President Pervez Musharraf to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to consider foreign help in probing the assassination.

That refusal will leave many thinking the Pakistani government are still trying to hide something - and of course they are: who ultimately ordered the assassination.

Update 2 In yet another indication that the Pakistani government has no intention of carrying out a throrough investigation of Bhutto's death, it appears that injured survivors of the suicide blast - possibly key witnesses, have yet to be interviewed by police.

New questions were being asked yesterday about the thoroughness of the police investigation into Benazir Bhutto's murder when it emerged that officers had yet to interview survivors in hospital and had only just begun detailed forensic inquiries.
Supporters of Bhutto's opposition Pakistan People's party caught in the blast in Rawalpindi last Thursday said police had yet to visit them. It was Monday before officers examined the car in which Bhutto was travelling and the first arrangements were made for DNA tests on several body parts recovered from the scene.

The policeman heading the investigation was quoted as saying that officers did not begin the inquiries earlier because he had not returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca until late Sunday. An examination of the murder scene would be unlikely to yield much evidence as it was hosed down by firefighters within minutes of the blast and quickly reopened to the public.

The PPP says it has serious doubts about all three investigations into the bombing - one by police and the intelligence services, the second headed by a judge, and a third by the interior ministry into the government's security measures for Bhutto - because it suspects that elements within the state were behind the attack.

Britain has offered to help Pakistan and the US is understood to have quietly called on Pakistan to allow in overseas investigators. The New York Times quoted Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Mahmud Ali Durrani, as saying his country would welcome international expertise but not an independent outside investigation.

Meanwhile, plans continue to eliminate the man the Pakistani regime has blamed for the attack, Baitullah Mehsud. His involvement is based upon an alleged intercept of him congratulating a minion on the killing by phone, despite his having called for an international enquiry and despite the fact that there are no phone lines or cellphone towers in his part of the company.

Bhutto - Accused Taliban Leader Backs Independent Enquiry

By Cernig

The militant Taliban leader who has been accused by Pakistan's government of ordering Bhutto's assassination has backed calls for an independent investigation of her death.

The pro-democracy icon, 54, was killed last Thursday in a gun-and- suicide bomb attack that government officials claim was carried out by the followers of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the newly formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) (Taliban Movement Pakistan).

'The government is carrying out a propaganda campaign against Baitullah Mehsud and the Taliban is unfairly being alleged for the attack,' the militant group's spokesman Maulvi Omar told the BBC's Urdu service by telephone from undisclosed location.

Bhutto's murder was a great national tragedy and therefore an independent inquiry should be held, he added.

...The Taliban spokesman said any independent inquiry that was free from US and Britain influence would be acceptable for them.

Quite remarkable, if true. Either Mehsud is playing an astute game of destabilisation or he really didn't order the killing. Which, do you think?

New Tape Seems To Show Bhutto WAS Shot

By Cernig

CNN today has a video of the death of Benazir Bhutto which shows her scarf tugged, as if by an invisible hand, as shots rang out just before a suicide bomb detonated. The video suggests that at least one bullet passed very close or struck her a glancing blow.

Meanwhile, the NY Times confirms reports in the Indian Press two days ago ( which we blogged here) which said that the hospital report did not make any mention of the already-infamous Sunroof Lever of Doom.

Athar Minallah, a board member of the hospital where Ms. Bhutto was treated, released her medical report along with an open letter showing that her doctors wanted to distance themselves from the government theory that Ms. Bhutto had died by hitting her head on a lever of her car’s sunroof during the attack.

In his letter, Mr. Minallah, who is also a prominent lawyer, said the doctors believed that an autopsy was needed to provide the answers to how she actually died. Their request for one last Thursday was denied by the local police chief.

Pakistani and Western security experts said the government’s insistence that Ms. Bhutto, a former prime minister, was not killed by a bullet was intended to deflect attention from the lack of government security around her.

...Mr. Minallah distributed the medical report with his open letter to the Pakistani news media and The New York Times. He said the doctor who wrote the report, Mohammad Mussadiq Khan, the principal professor of surgery at the Rawalpindi General Hospital, told him on the night of Ms. Bhutto’s death that she had died of a bullet wound.

Dr. Khan declined through Mr. Minallah to speak with a reporter on the grounds that he was an employee of a government hospital and was fearful of government reprisals if he did not support its version of events.

The medical report, prepared with six other doctors, does not specifically mention a bullet because the actual cause of the head wound was to be left to an autopsy, Mr. Minallah said. The doctors had stressed to him that “without an autopsy it is not at all possible to determine as to what had caused the injury,” he wrote.

It was Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who refused an autopsy, citing mistrust of whether any government findings would be truthful. He certainly seems to have had good reason for that, given the way the government have spun everything surrounding the incident down to even the cause of death and, more importantly, who was responsible.

Bhutto's Bloodstained Car

By Cernig

Have a look at this:

Inside Bhutto's car shows bloody end

Do you really think a fracture from a sunroof lever also broke the skin enough and caused all that blood to be shed?

Bhutto's Teen Son Is New Party Leader

By Cernig

The very fact that Bhutto's will names her 19 year old son Bilawal as her "heir" as leader of the PPP and hands the co-chairmanship to her astonishigly corrupt husband speaks volumes about Bhutto's own preference for oligarchy over democracy. It speaks volumes for the PPP that it rubber-stamped her wishes.

Bilawal Bhutto may not have finished his academic studies at Oxford yet, but he's been groomed well by his family for his new-found power. "Democracy is the best revenge," he told reporters with a straight face. His party will now contest the elections, forcing other frontrunner Nawaz Sharif to reconsider his boycott announced after Bhutto's assassination. There's no doubt in my mind that Bhutto's PPP aren't the best hope for Pakistan - they're simply the most electable. In that, they hold something very much in common with America's Democrats and Republicans, who are also enamoured of rich oligarchies.

But as Bhutto's supporters clash with security troops (what else do you call a paramilitary with a Kalashnikov? A policeman?) and Pakistan comes to a standstill; it seems that the elections will be used to paper over massive cracks in Pakistani society and that the various oligarchical factions will go on as normal in their aftermath. I smell a "soft totalitarian" quid pro quo.

Update The Bush administration, according to the WaPo today, has no Plan B for Pakistan and will stay the course(TM) with pushing Musharraf as the leader of a "moderate space" in Pakistani politics - a notion so wrong-headed and so inspired by a perfect snowstorm of Pakistani spin that it would be hilarious if it wasn't deathly depressing.

Bhutto Catalogue

by shamanic

When Cernig first asked me to come and write for a new group blog version of his always insightful Newshog, almost a year ago now, I have to admit I felt a little intimidated. The dude is able to pull together information from a truly global assortment of news and opinion sources day in and day out, and he pursues stories from a clear point of view and interesting angle and with the intensity of a furious pit bull.

Right now, he is creating a catalogue of stories about a crime and its cover up. With the diligence of a sought-after trial attorney, Cernig is casting reasonable doubt on every new story that the Pakistani government pushes about the killing of Benazir Bhutto, and shedding light on the connections between the players, the pawns, and the kings.

It is unlikely that the true story of this attack and the parties involved will ever be known to the public. There are vested interests who will protect each other in whatever passes for an investigation in Pakistan, and western governments won't push Musharraf too hard anyway. The information Cernig is compiling is a series of important pieces of the historical record that will be whitewashed in the official versions, which is all the more reason to maintain them.

Monday December 31: New Tape Seems to Show Bhutto Was Shot. As the title suggests, plus statements from doctors at the hospital denying the "sunroof lever" theory.

Sunday December 30: Bhutto's Bloodstained Car. A video shows the quantity of blood in the car after her arrival at the hospital.

Sunday December 30: Bhutto's Teen Son Is New Party Leader. In which the quote "Democracy is the best revenge" joins the lexicon of paternalistic aristocrats.

Saturday December 29: The Man Who Shot Bhutto. Contains quotes from Safdar Abbassi, Bhutto political advisor who was in the car when she fell into it. He insists that she was shot in the neck -- his wife tried to stanch the wound with her headscarf -- contrary to official Pakistani reports. In updates to the post, The Daily Mail declines to name names in the Pakistani political establishment, and The Daily Express reports that photographs show there were two attackers and a lot of excess explosives after the attack.

Saturday December 29: Pakistan's Hope Still Under House Arrest. Short piece about Iftikhar Chaudhry, chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court and a potential leader for a now-leaderless democracy movement in Pakistan.

Saturday December 29: Islamist Group Denies Killing Bhutto. Detailed piece exploring the role of Baitullah Mehsud, who I guess is who we would call a "person of interest". Also: an overview of the Pakistani government's shifting explanation of how Bhutto died, and the fact that police were known to have abandoned checkpoints around the rally after an early security presence there.

Friday December 28: More Questions than Answers. In which Pakistan first utters the multi-billion dollar phrase, "Al-Qaeda did it!"

Friday December 28: Bhutto Avalanche Round-Up & Us. This piece is by me, but contains a worthwhile link to the Washington Post's coverage of the US government's role and motivation in putting Bhutto back in Pakistan to begin with.

Thursday December 27: Breaking News in Pakistan. This post was updated throughout the day as more information (and speculation) became available. Contains the original back-and-forth about whether Musharraf would be the primary beneficiary of Benazir Bhutto's death (I say it hurts Mushie more than it helps, Cernig says he needed someone to rid him of a "turbulent priest", a phrase I'm so grateful he used. Google it for its amazing applicability.).

The Man Who Shot Bhutto (Updated)

By Cernig

The above amateur picture is of a man aiming a handgun towards Benazir Bhutto's vehicle. The Daily Telegraph spoke to Safdar Abbassi, her chief political adviser, who was sitting behind her.

"All of a sudden there was the sound of firing. I heard the sound of a bullet."I saw her: she looked as though she ducked in when she heard the firing. We did not realise that she had been hit by a bullet."

He had looked up to see Ms Bhutto sliding back through the aperture in the roof of the white Land Cruiser. Moments later, the car was rocked by a huge explosion.

There was no sound from the fallen leader.

...Dr Abbassi leant forward to see what was wrong. At first glance, she appeared to have escaped injury. Then he noticed the blood. It was seeping from a deep wound on the left side of her neck.

His account is confirmed by photos that have surfaced in Pakistan showing a man in dark glasses aiming a handgun and standing only few feet from Ms Bhutto, moments before she died.

Naheeb Khan, his wife, cradled the injured woman's head in her lap, reaching up for her own headscarf, pulling it from her head, pressing it into the wound, trying to stem the flow. But the wound was deep and the blood seeped out, spreading down her neck and across her blue tunic.

The official Pakistani government line is that Ms Bhutto caught her head on the sunroof's catch as she ducked inside, fracturing her skull. "Absolute facts - nothing but facts," it said of its account. But Dr Abbassi leaves little room for doubt. There was too much blood, he said, and a gaping wound in her neck. She had been shot.

..."We thought she had ducked in but she had not, she had fallen down," said Dr Abbassi. "She did not say a single word. For a few seconds we thought she was confused by the firing and that is why she was not talking. We did not realise…"

Before anyone had a chance to speak, the attacker detonated his explosives, peppering the vehicle with ball bearings.

"There was a big bang. Some of the shrapnel hit the car and then the driver sped away." In the following car, Farhad Ullah Babar, Ms Bhutto's chief spokesman, saw his leader disappear back inside her car. "There was a huge bang and everyone was running from one place to the other but the vehicle was still moving," he said. "She disappeared. So we thought, because she had gone inside, that she was safe."

But inside the car in front, realisation was dawning. "We saw the blood: the blood was everywhere, on her neck and on her clothes and we realised she was hit. She could not say anything," Dr Abbassi said, his shirt still stained with Ms Bhutto's blood.

Able to do nothing more than stanch some of the bleeding, they made for the nearest hospital. Ms Bhutto was still alive when she was carried into the intensive care unit, but her injuries were so severe that she stood no chance.

"The doctors really tried their best but it was too late," Dr Abbassi said, amid tears. "I was so optimistic: I thought nothing would happen to her. I still feel she is alive. I cannot believe she is with us no more."

And the Daily Mail reports that, weeks before she died, Bhutto sent an email to UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband in which she named three Musharraf allies who she said were out to kill her. The Mail says it knows the names but has decided not to publish them.

One is a senior intelligence officer and retired army officer who worked for Pakistan's sinister Inter Services Intelligence spy agency, which has close links to the Taliban and has been involved in drug smuggling and political assassinations. He allegedly directed two Islamic terrorist groups and reportedly once boasted that he could pay money to hired killers to assassinate anyone who posed a threat to Musharraf's regime.

He was given another senior intelligence post by Musharraf after his bid to become a senior overseas diplomat for Pakistan failed when the host country refused to let him in because of his past activities.

He was also linked to Omar Sheikh, the former British public schoolboy convicted of kidnapping US journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in 2002 by having his throat cut and being decapitated by Islamic terrorists.

The second individual named by Miss Bhutto is well known in Pakistani political circles and has been involved in a vicious family feud with her for decades.

One of his relatives was said to have been murdered by the militant Al Zulfiqar group run by Miss Bhutto's brother, Murtaza. The organisation was set up to avenge the execution of Miss Bhutto's father Zulfiqar Bhutto by ex-Pakistan dictator Zia ul Haq.

The third individual is a chief minister who has repeatedly denounced Miss Bhutto - and faced political annihilation if she won the elections scheduled for next week. He made an outspoken attack on her only hours before her death.

Update the UK's Daily Express adds:

Grainy images of a balding man firing two shots at Miss Bhutto before detonating an explosion are now being enhanced by security agencies investigating whether the plot was the work of a rogue terror outfit or was masterminded by either Al Qaeda affiliates or renegade elements within President Musharraf's government.

Meanwhile, last night an English-language Pakistan TV channel broadcast pictures taken by an amateur photographer which, it said, showed that two assassins took part in the attack.

One photo shows a man in a dark suit and wearing sunglasses within 12 yards of Miss Bhutto and pointing what appears to be a gun at her. Just behind him is another man, dressed all in white, who the Dawn News channel said was an associate of the gunman and who activated the bomb. Another picture shows Mrs Bhutto falling back into her car and disappearing from view before the explosives are triggered.

Security sources have revealed that 11 lb of explosives and two pistols found near the body of the assassin are being looked at by forensic experts and fingerprints taken from the killer's corpse are being checked against the records of the ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence arm.

Why wasn't that 11 pounds of explosive detonated by the massive explosion too, I wonder? And note that Bhutto fell back inside the car before the bomb went off.

Pakistan's Hope Still Under House Arrest

By Cernig

Mona Eltahawy writes at the Washington Post's "Post Global" today, in a "warts and all" personal recollection of Benazir Bhutto, that the real alternative to military rule or Islamist unrest may be:

Iftikhar Chaudhry, chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, who has been under house arrest since November 3rd. Musharraf imprisoned dozens of judges and lawyers when he declared Emergency Law in late October because they represent a potent liberal opposition that is not tainted by corruption charges and do not have an Islamist bogeyman among them to obligingly frighten his western allies, who seem to believe he really is leading the War on Terror.

Chaudhry and the lawyers are Pakistan’s best hope. Pakistan needs them, as does a Muslim world hungry for a different kind of leadership – one that Bhutto seemed to represent in those early days of promise.

As the Pakistani government tries to spin the narrative from "who killed Bhutto" into "how did Bhutto die" with some muddying of the evidentiary waters - with a high pressure hose - it's worth trying to keep our eyes on the actual problem.

Islamist Group Denies Killing Bhutto (Updated)

By Cernig

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice might say. It was obvious from word one that the Pakistani government's blaming Baitullah Mehsud for Bhutto's death while calling him an Al Qaeda leader was problemmatic. For one thing, Mehsud's always been more of a Taliban type than an AQ honcho - which is why Musharraf pardoned him in a deal with the Taliban back in 2005. The Interior Ministry's claim yesterday that Mehsud's group is "behind most of the recent terrorist attacks that have taken place in Pakistan," is also patently ludicrous given relatively humble Mehsud's status as one of several local Taliban affiliated commanders in South Waziristan and the plethora of terrorist groups Pakistan finds itself host to.

Then there's the alleged telephone intercept released to bolster the government's claim. In it, they say, Mehsud talks to one of his henchmen about the attack. The problem is the henchman's name - Maulvi Sahib - isn't even a real name. The last part is just an honorific and the first refers to someone who leads Friday prayers. The house where Mehsud supposedly is staying is that of someone called Anwar Shah - which has to be one of the most common names in Pakistan. Even Mushie's own Assistant Political Agent for South Waziristan is called that! And "Maulvi Sahib" nowhere actually refers to Baitullah Mehsud by name - he calls the person he is talking to "Emir" (Chief) throughout. Pretty damn flimsy proof.

Unsurprisingly, Mehsud has denied responsibility, just as he did when blame was pinned on him for the last attempt on Bhutto's life back in October.

Alleged Al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud denied any involvement in Benazir Bhutto's death after the Pakistan government blamed him for the killing, his spokesman told AFP on Saturday.

"He had no involvement in this attack," spokesman Maulana Omar said in a telephone call. "This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies."

The spokesman said he was calling from Pakistan's Waziristan area, a lawless tribal region where Pakistani government forces have been battling Islamist militants. "It is against tribal tradition and custom to attack a woman," Omar said.

He said the transcript released by the government, allegedly of a phone call between Mehsud and a militant discussing Bhutto's death after the fact, was a "drama" and expressed sadness over her assassination on Thursday.

He said it would have been "impossible" for militants to get through the security cordon around the campaign rally where she was killed.

"Benazir was not only a leader of Pakistan but also a leader of international fame. We express our deep grief and shock over her death," Omar said.

FOXNews adds that Mehsud had contact with Bhutto through intermediaries:

"We strongly deny it. Baitullah Mehsud is not involved in the killing of Benazir Bhutto," he said in a telephone call he made to The Associated Press from the tribal region of South Waziristan.

"The fact is that we are only against America, and we don't consider political leaders of Pakistan our enemy," he said, adding that he was speaking on instructions from Mehsud.

Mehsud heads Tehrik-i-Taliban, a newly formed coalition of Islamic militants committed to waging holy war against the government, which is a key U.S. ally in its war on terror.

Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party accused the government of trying to frame Mehsud, saying the militant — through emissaries — had previously told Bhutto he was not involved in the Karachi bombing.

"The story that al-Qaida or Baitullah Mehsud did it appears to us to be a planted story, an incorrect story, because they want to divert the attention," said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Bhutto's party.

After the Karachi attack, Bhutto accused elements in the ruling pro-Musharraf party of plotting to kill her. The government denied the claims. Babar said Bhutto's allegations were never investigated.

When asked about Mehsud's denial, goverment spokesman Brigadier Cheema said: "We have the evidence that he is involved. Why should he accept that he has done it? It does not suit him. I don't think anybody has the capability to carry out such suicide attacks except for those people." If he truly thinks that, he must be the only one. There are plenty of other possible suspects.

But if the government's finger of blame is suspect, then so too is its account of how Bhutto died.

On Thursday, hours after Bhutto's death, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said she died from a gunshot wound to the neck, with the gunman firing as Bhutto stood through the open sunroof of her vehicle while leaving a rally in Rawalpindi. The gunman then blew himself up, killing 23 others as well, officials said.

Video of the incident shows a man shooting a handgun three times toward Bhutto's car before the blast. The account was consistent with statements to The Associated Press from doctors who pronounced Bhutto dead at a hospital. Watch three shots and a blast

But on Friday, the Interior Ministry said Bhutto was killed by shrapnel from the explosion. Then, hours later, the ministry said she died from a skull fracture suffered when she either fell or ducked into the car as a result of the shots or the explosion and crashed her head into a sunroof latch. Watch the government account of how Bhutto died

"The government comes up with the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense and it indicates that they are abdicating themselves of all responsibility by saying that she may have knocked her head or concussed her head against one of the levers on the sunroof," [Sherry Rehman, Pakistan People's Party information secretary said.

Reham recounted her own eyewitness version:

Rehman -- who had been riding in the car behind Bhutto's when it was attacked -- called the government's conclusion that Bhutto was not shot "the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense."

"It's beginning to look like a cover-up to me," Rehman said in a CNN interview.

Rehman said Bhutto was hemorrhaging on the way to the hospital and that the two cars used to get her there were blood-soaked.

"There were clear bullet injuries to her head," said Rehman. "When we bathed her we saw that."

One McClatchy journalist who was an eyewitness backed up the PPP's account and also reported police officers leaving their posts just before shots rang out.

Three to five shots were fired at her, witnesses said. She was hit in the neck and slumped back in the vehicle. Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness. Moments after the shooting, there was a huge explosion to the left of the vehicle.

Witnesses said that Bhutto's bodyguards pounced on the assassin, who then blew himself up, shredding those around him. Ambulance crews collected pieces of flesh from the scene. The road turned red with pools of blood.

I was standing near the rally stage, about 30 to 40 yards away from the scene of the shooting. There was pandemonium. On hearing the shots, I started running toward the scene. Then came the explosion. I ran back a bit. I didn't see the killer, and by the time I got to the gates, Bhutto's SUV was driving to a Rawalpindi hospital. She didn't have a chance.

...Police officers had frisked the 3,000 to 4,000 people attending Thursday's rally when they entered the park, but as the speakers from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party droned on, the police abandoned many of their posts. As she drove out through the gate, her main protection appeared to be her own bodyguards, who wore their usual white T-shirts inscribed: "Willing to die for Benazir."

That's just one of the security lapses the PPP are pointing to - along with government refusal to provide escort cars or bomb jamming equipment and refusal to allow international investigators to look into the last attempt on Bhutto's life. The Pakistani government has denied all charges of negligence or complicity and said the PPP can dig up Bhutto's body if it wants a postmortem (something the government expects ignorant Westerners not to know is haraam or "forbidden by God").

So what are we to believe? That the government is right and that Mehsud, the PPP, Bhutto herself - she wrote well prior to her death that she feared Musharraf's henchmen - and eyewitnesses are all wrong? Or that the government of pakistan is lying through it's teeth?

I'm not sure that Musharraf personally said "someone kill her" although that's still a strong possibility. I think it was more along the lines of "will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?" But the sponsorship links between the ISI and the various AQ/Taliban franchises and copycats are so numerous and well documented I find it difficult to believe Musharraf couldn't control the ISI and thus the various groups if he wanted to. The idea that he's the puppet of the military/ISI in the shadows is nonsense. He's always been the ringleader of the military coup since he arranged to depose Sharif. I'm reminded of the Bush spin on Iran and the "special forces" in Iraq - which is worse, that the leadership is controlling it's agents actions or that it isn't?

But the Pakistani authorities have again refused to allow international experts anywhere near the site of Bhutto's death or any of the evidence associated with their claims and satements.

Update Pakistan's Daily Times has a headline and a half: Report silent on what hit Benazir’s head.

The seven-member medical team that examined former premier Benazir Bhutto at Rawalpindi General Hospital on December 27, submitted its report to the Interior Ministry, making no mention of what exactly hit the head of the former prime minister.

A 3-page medical report, a copy of which is available with Daily Times, stated that an open-head injury with depressed skull fracture caused a cardiopulmonary arrest. The Interior Ministry had claimed that Benazir suffered a head injury after hitting the lever of her vehicle’s sunroof. The report read, “Benazir was pulse-less and was not breathing when she was brought to the hospital. Her pupils were fixed dilated and non-reacting to light. A wound was present on the right temporo-parietal region through which blood was trickling down and a whitish material, which looked like brain matter was visible in the wound.”It said that cardiopulmonary resuscitation was given as soon as Benazir was brought to the hospital.

So wtf? Did the Interior Ministry just make up the bit about the sunroof lever? If so, as several people have already pointed out, it was to try to make Bhutto's death look more accidental and thus reduce the chances of this flawed women in life becoming a faultless martyr in death.

Moreover, amateur photographs and video shot at the scene clearly show an identifiable gunman aiming at Bhutto and firing, while witness statements are extremely consistent in saying she was shot.

What Bhutto's assassination means domestically

by shamanic

On Thursday, all the US political campaigns were quick to start elbowing each other about how the assassination of Benazir Bhutto highlighted their candidate's credentials for dealing with the blah blah of it all, and it was sick and disgusting and opportunistic.

My guess is that it will have only this effect on the US presidential race: Mike Huckabee will suffer for his incredible ignorance. It's astonishing that a man who is considered by many to be a front runner in the party that says it has the strongest foreign policy should be so devoid of a basic understanding of the situation here on planet Earth.

More Questions Than Answers - Updated

By Cernig

The official Pakistani Interior Ministry statement today on Benazir Bhutto's assassination begs more questions than it answers. Starting with the alleged culprits.

Pakistan has "intelligence intercepts" indicating that al Qaeda was behind the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

..."We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination," ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told a news conference.

Mehsud is one of Pakistan's most wanted militant leaders and is based in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border.

Cheema said authorities had recorded an intercept on Friday morning in which Mehsud had congratulated his people for carrying out the attack.

He also said Mehsud was behind a suicide bomb attack on Bhutto in Karachi that killed about 140 people hours after she arrived back in the country from eight years of exile on October 18.

This claim that Baitullah Mehsud's group is responsible is in stark contrast to an earlier Interior Ministry claim, noted both by Spencer Ackerman and myself, that the Sunni-supremacist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was responsible. The latter are an ISI creation, developed as one of its proxies, rather than a group closely linked to Al Qaeda.

But blaming Baitullah Mehsud as an Al Qaeda affiliate is itself problemmatic. For one thing, he isn't an Al Qaeda leader as reports have stated although his connections with the Taliban are clearer cut. However, if he is in fact an Al Qaeda leader, what was Musharraf doing pardoning him and 35 of his lieutenants in 2005?

Mehsud was also blamed for the October attempt on Bhutto's life, but he later denied ever threatening her and Bhutto herself described him as a pawn in a bigger conspiracy in which the real culprits were "some retired army officers in the establishment".

Others have already pointed out the peculiar nature of the Interior Ministry's statement on how exactly Bhutto died - supposedly a very ignominious death by accident after striking her head on the sunroof lever of her car - rather than by bullet wound as originally reported by eyewitnesses or shrapnel from the bomb blast as one doctor reportedly said later. But for many the important fact will be that:

Bhutto's precise cause of death may never be known because of the failure to administer an autopsy. The procedure was not carried out because police and local authorities in Rawalpindi did not request one, according to IBNLive, but the government plans a formal investigation why this was the case.

That's remarkably similiar to the state of affairs after the October attempt too. Back then, Hassan Abbas of the Jamestown Foundation's Global terror Analysis wrote:

Bhutto has asked Musharraf to appoint credible police officers to pursue the investigation and also involve foreign forensic experts. The government of Pakistan, however, has so far refused to accept this demand, giving some credence to the view that the government has something to hide. It is unlikely that any credible information about the real identity of the attackers will be made available to the Pakistani public and international community. That would not be unprecedented, as Pakistanis are still waiting to hear who assassinated the country's first prime minister, Liaquat ali Khan, in 1951.

It seems history in Pakistan is set to "rinse, spin, repeat". That may well be a deliberate ploy from the Pakistani government. Western governments and mainstream media have their narrative - they will now associate Bhutto's death with Al Qaeda terrorism rather than local terror troubles, thus ensuring Musharraf's government keeps getting foreign aid to (mostly pretend) to fight extremism, and will be unlikely to look closer.

shamanic adds: Did anyone doubt that al-Qaeda would end up being the official culprit? And even more, that the US government would happily accept that explanation?

Maybe al-Qaeda, through some local proxy, did do this, but in point of fact we're never going to know. Neither the Pakistani government nor the United States government are worthy of any trust when it comes to this story. But I have a feeling that Pervez Musharraf, having just about outlived his usefulness to everyone involved -- his own people, western governments, and the military and security agencies of Pakistan -- will be the next to have an unfortunately fatal run in with a piece of his car.

Instahoglets 28th December 2007

By Cernig

The assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto continues to dominate the headlines and op-eds today - as it rightly should. But there's other stuff out there worthy of attention too. So today's Instahoglets comes in two chunks:

Bhutto Discussion and Reports

Yesterday, National Review got a bunch of their usual suspects to pontificate on the impact of the assassination. Lord help me, I found myself agreeing in large part with Victor David Hanson!

Steve Benen, guesting for Kevin Drum, scathingly points out the stupidity of every candidate in the US '08 race claiming this bolsters their campaign.

This really has the Islamophobes climbing out of their closets, though. One Rudy campaigner is claiming Guilliani is the only one who can chase "the Muslims" back "into their caves". Niiice. But I suspect we'll hear lots more of the same.

Andrew Sullivan points out that Al Qaeda being to blame is actually the most optimistic assessment.

But there's a report that another Taliban-linked group, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, may be responsible. Backgrounder on the group here and here you'll find the links between that group and Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency.

Non-Bhutto Related Stuff

When warhawks lose their faith, they do so in a hawkish way. John Derbyshire at NRO contemplates living with an Iranian mid-East hegemon and concludes: "Given the rivalries and hatreds of the ME, I doubt a stable Iranian hegemony is possible. If it is possible, it's something we'll learn to live with, and no direct threat to the U.S.A. that I can see."

NY Times: "Top editors at the military newspaper Stars and Stripes are asking for full disclosure of the paper's relationship with a Department of Defense publicity program, called America Supports You, after disclosures that money for the program was funneled through the newspaper." The Bushies politicising supposedly independent chunks of the federal infrastructure? Who'd a thunk it!

So obsessed with secrecy! - the CIA refuses to declassify the size and budget of the Agency....fifty years ago.

The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive. They say they've run out of money despite having several billion dollars to do what Saddam managed with one billion. That'll be your Bushivick-advised government, then.

Iraqi reconcilliation update: the Kirkuk referendum has been postponed because the various players can't agree on how to run the census needed before the vote. And the much-promised rewriting of the Iraqi Constitution to address Sunni misgivings has been postponed for the fourth time.

War on the Real Terrorist or dangerous superstition? Pope Benedict XVI plans to tackle the rise of Satanism by setting up specialist exorcism squads in every diocese.

Bhutto Avalanche Round-Up & Us

by shamanic

So much information and analysis this morning, so I'll see if I can't summarize the best of what's out there.

First, you should read the entirety of the Washington Post's piece on how (and why) the US brokered Bhutto's return to Pakistan. Choice cuts:

As President Pervez Musharraf's political future began to unravel this year, Bhutto became the only politician who might help keep him in power.

"The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact," said Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Bhutto in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

Another expert, somewhat prematurely I think, says:

Bhutto's assassination leaves Pakistan's future -- and Musharraf's -- in doubt, some experts said. "U.S. policy is in tatters. The administration was relying on Benazir Bhutto's participation in elections to legitimate Musharraf's continued power as president," said Barnett R. Rubin of New York University. "Now Musharraf is finished."

Musharraf is certainly a guy with nine lives, and I'm not sure he doesn't have a couple left. But certainly his time seems much more limited than it was before. Pakistanis are clearly finished with his dictatorship, and the swirling emotions of an election hot on the heels of a political assassination make the situation there unpredictable at best.

Scarecrow at Firedoglake drops the hammer on the US policy in the region, saying in effect that we sacrificed Benazir Bhutto to save Pervez Musharraf. That's certainly one interpretation of events, and it is worth noting that this is an administration that constantly makes big gambles, often losing spectacularly. Had the election happened and Bhutto's party won a landslide, perhaps Pakistan could have transitioned away from military rule. But, you know, the moderate choice for democracy could also be shot a few times and then blown to bits by the very radicals we're trying to contain. (Or whoever. As demonstrated in the multiple-update thread, a lot of groups stand to gain from her death, including the Pakistani military, the security service, and Pervez Musharraf himself, not to mention the many extremist groups that call Pakistan home.)

Al-Qaeda is trying to claim responsibility for the attack, but it's apparently not a very credible claim, at least at this point. My strictly uneducated guess is that the attack included help from several quarters, including extremist sympathizers in the military.

So where does this leave Musharraf? And where does this leave US policy in the region, and the Great & Glorious Generational Struggle/War Against Terror and Violent Jihad? Your guess is as good as mine. Here's what I know: Americans continue to be saddled with abysmally bad leadership that can't make a decent policy decision to save anybody's life. That situation will continue for another year yet, and in the meantime, the world will continue going to hell in the absence of that leadership. Perhaps I overstate our influence. But Pakistan now appears on the brink of rapid, jarring change in a region where that rarely plays out well, Afghanistan (next door) isn't exactly the paradise I had hoped for in 2002, Iran (next door) isn't exactly the WOT ally it was attempting to be in 2003, and Iraq (next door to Iran) continues to be a quagmire from which we cannot extricate the great bulk of America's combat-ready troops.

All in all, it sure seems like something just slammed hard into a fan somewhere.

Bhutto's media legacy

by shamanic

Ordinarily, I get up in the morning, take the doggies out, make some coffee, and then check out Memeorandum to get some story ideas for ye olde blogge.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the site so dominated by one story as it is this morning with analysis of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. I have nothing to add since my snark last night (that would be Update 9 in the post below).

One of the problems with being a blogger rather than a journalist is that you almost always have to wait until the next day for the avalanche of information you want instantly. The avalanche has hit. More later.