Patterico's Pontifications

12/28/2007

Al Qaeda on Bhutto: “We’ve Terminated the Most Precious American Asset”

Filed under: International,War — DRJ @ 4:55 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

An Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan has claimed responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:

“Confirming the worst fears of governments and anti-terror agencies worldwide, an al-Qaida leader on Friday claimed responsibility for the assassination of former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto, whom he described as “the most precious American asset”.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat (the) mujahideen,” al-Qaida commander and spokesman Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told the Italian news agency Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location. Al-Yazid was described by AKI as the “main al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan”. It reported that the decision to kill Bhutto was made by al-Qaida No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October.

The report said death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and a cell comprising a “Punjabi volunteer” of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi killed Bhutto. President Pervez Musharraf had blamed the al-Qaida when he survived two assassination attempts in 2003 in Rawalpindi.

The Qaida claim coincided with a new theory about the exact cause of Bhutto’s death. Pakistan interior minstry spokesman, Javed Cheema, said on Friday that she was killed by shrapnel in the wake of the explosion triggered by the suicide bomber.

Cheema told Times Now that a man shot at Bhutto as she waved to her supporters from the sun-roof of her bulletproof car. But the bullets missed the slain leader. He then blew himself up and it was a splinter unleashed in the explosion that hit her and killed her. Agencies quoted Cheema as saying that Bhutto died after she was injured by the lever of the car in which she was travelling.

Doctors at Rawalpindi general hospital who tried to save Bhutto’s life also said that there were no bullet wounds in her body. PPP leaders had said on Thursday that she had been hit by shots fired by the suicide attacker while she was waving to supporters from her armoured vehicle.”

The Sydney Morning Herald filed this report about the Pakistani government’s statement on Bhutto’s injuries:

“Pakistan’s interior ministry said today Benazir Bhutto died after smashing her head on her car’s sunroof while trying to duck, and that no bullet or shrapnel was found inside her.
***
“If she had not come out of the vehicle, she would have been unhurt, as all the other occupants of the vehicle did not receive any injuries,” ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said. He said the post-mortem on the populist opposition leader, whose funeral earlier today was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners, found her mortal wound came when she tried to duck after the bomber attacked.

The bomber also apparently fired three times at her but missed, Cheema said. When she ducked, she hit the lever of the sunroof of the car that was to speed her away from a campaign rally as she was gearing up to contest parliamentary elections set for January 8. “The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull,” Cheema said. “There was no bullet or metal shrapnel found in the injury.”

Bhutto’s lawyer disputed the government account as “a pack of lies”:

“But a top aide to Benazir Bhutto rejected the government’s explanation of her death as a “pack of lies”. “It is baseless. It is a pack of lies,” Farooq Naik, Bhutto’s top lawyer and a senior official in her Pakistan People’s Party, said.

“Two bullets hit her, one in the abdomen and one in the head,” Naik said. “Bhutto’s personal secretary Naheed Khan and party official Makhdoom Amin Fahim were in the car and they saw what happened,” he said.

“It is an irreparable loss and they are turning it into a joke with such claims. The country is heading towards civil war.”

It’s not a promising sign that the groups can’t agree on Bhutto’s injuries and what caused her death. I understand that prompt burials are culturally required but it works against the public interest in this case and will undoubtedly result in future disputes and conspiracy theories.

Cheema also claimed that the government had intercepted a congratulatory telephone call from Baitullah Mehsud, a South Waziristan (tribal area) Taliban who reportedly also has links to Al Qaeda:

Mr Cheeema said intelligence services had intercepted a call today from the man considered to be a top al-Qaeda figure for Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, congratulating a militant after Bhutto’s death.

He said there was “irrefutable evidence that al-Qaeda, its networks and cohorts are trying to destabilise Pakistan”. “We have recorded his conversation in which he is congratulating a militant for the attack,” Cheema said, adding that Mehsud was also behind the suicide attack on Bhutto’s homecoming rally in October that killed 140 people.

“He is responsible for most of the attacks that have taken place in the country,” the spokesman said, calling for national unity “to eliminate the proponents of death and destruction who are trying to destabilise Pakistan.”

Pakistani authorities say Mehsud is based in the troubled tribal region of South Waziristan, where troops have been battling Islamist rebels since the fall of the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2001. Mehsud had until recently been described by officials as the top pro-Taliban militant commander in the region but is increasingly said to have links to bin Laden’s al-Qaeda group.”

The Pakistani government obviously has an interest in blaming Bhutto’s assassination on Al Qaeda and Taliban interests and it may be that’s what happened. However, it’s not enough to show that extremists were responsible for Bhutto’s assassination. Musharraf also has to take steps to show the extremists did not have assistance from his government. That may be impossible to prove, for many reasons, but especially if it is not true.

It will be especially difficult to convince Bhutto’s supporters that Musharraf wasn’t responsible after reading Bhutto’s message to Wolf Blitzer:

Bhutto, who was assassinated on Thursday, wrote to Blitzer that if anything happened to her, “I would hold (Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf responsible.”

Blitzer received the e-mail on Oct. 26 from Mark Siegel, a friend and longtime Washington spokesman for Bhutto. That was eight days after she narrowly escaped another attempt at her life. Bhutto wrote to Blitzer that “I have been made to feel insecure by his (Musharraf’s) minions,” that specific improvements had not been made to her security arrangements, and that the Pakistani leader was responsible.
***
Bhutto did not necessarily believe that Musharraf wanted her dead, but felt many people around him did, he said.”

These have become Bhutto’s words from the grave and, for many people, they will always ring true.

— DRJ

13 Responses to “Al Qaeda on Bhutto: “We’ve Terminated the Most Precious American Asset””

  1. The next president cannot leave liberal Muslims and other enemies of al Qaeda to their own devices. Do whatever it takes to polarize the Muslim world against them. While U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan serve as al Qaeda’s best recruiting tool, there are far more Muslims around the world today fighting against al Qaeda than there were before we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.

    steve (c10f18)

  2. Hillary Clinton seems to want to undermine our influence in Pakistan with her recent comments.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  3. I read some of her comments on Bhutto’s assassination and they were mostly personal recollections, basically “I know her.” Was there more or are you referring to her statement earlier this month that Pakistan is the world’s most dangerous country?

    DRJ (09f144)

  4. DRJ, she’s quoted as demanding an international inquiry implying that Musharref’s govt can’t be trusted to investigate.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  5. Here is a report. Not helpful at this time at best, just more knee jerk, unthinking Democrat foreign policy blather.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  6. That’s interesting. Of course, I’m not sure I trust Musharraf’s government to investigate this but I doubt any outside group could find the truth if the Pakistani government wanted to hide it.

    Actually, I was more surprised by John Edwards’s statement that he talked to Musharraf. I know it’s common in recent years for politicians and others to meet with foreign leaders, but I still think the American government should speak through its elected representatives or their agencies. And candidates who meet with or talk to foreign leaders during a crisis are very troubling.

    DRJ (09f144)

  7. It is the kind of stupid stunt I’d expect from Edwards. I have this itch that Kerry did something similar during the 2004 campaign but I can’t recall what.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  8. Dear Musharraf,

    Expect US/UK/ some sort of coalition of, troops arrival within months, or we can send you more nukes in 30 minutes.

    Your response is mandatory!

    Yes, the landing will cause instant civil disturbance, but be assured it can be quelled with no less than three or four fouling’s of your territory But hey, think of the bright side, alquida aint gonna be hangin around either and you have too many mouths to feed as it is. Don’t worry, we will handle tyhis one with WWII island campaigne mind set, GITMO’s population will not increase.

    Edwards is still just another trial bar attorney. Oh and a total asswipe as well.

    But I did find it interesting in how the press hounded all candidates for comments about it and such. Not so much that they did, but that the media could be sorta classless in that they did it.

    Candidate A, said Gee I’m sorry…” Cb said it sucks…, Cc said the world if full of shit…” You know when a card of red and card of green are presented before you and you are asked to comment on such, what can you really say? Well it looks red to me, or it looks green from here. I suppose the correct term would be redundant. Why,because everybody is repulsed by such actions “globally” (not a new buzz word)! Do they actually expect some candidate to say something like, oh well shit happens?

    I’m positive there is a high level of outrage over this act, also amazing that since so much has been made over the JFK assassination there was autopsy performed! The type of stuff that feeds conspiracies is in flood stage already! If you desire any sembalance of any sort of justice, then you had best be willing to hang your laundry out with the rest of the world. The handling of JFK was a travesty and continues to be so at this time 45 years later!

    Fine she got buried, now dig her up and determine with all proof possible what exactly killed her, shot, shrapnel, bumped her head, it don’t matter, but for sure it is as well not a medical secret.

    From the brief movie I saw today, it appears that she or the party came under direct attack BEFORE the explosion.

    I’m sorry somebody felt it necessary to kill this woman, along with many others. I can but guess at the motives. But hey face it, she has been in power three times and been “thrown” out all three times for declared corruption! Real, imagined, trumped up? I don’t know, but once, ok she fooled them, twice, she shamed herself, thrice? Bill Clinton must be in the sheets! (ok that was a cheap shot). But does she come with clean hands, not by a long shot. Should she have been given a fourth chance, only the voters of pak can stand in judgment of such.

    theory: If there is a global desire to rid the world of Alquida, (or whatever the spelling of such is), for every act claimed by them, deposit the same on the Saudis. He is their offspring and their responsibility. They as well are big kids with lots and lots and lots of money, they speak the language and they can handle it.

    TC (1cf350)

  9. TERMINATE BIN LADEN TERMINAITE AL QUEDA

    krazy kagu (d59162)

  10. As I mentioned on a previous post, this just saved the Army from having to throw her in jail for the third time.

    Another Drew (8018ee)

  11. AD,

    That may be true. Corruption is more of an issue now that Bhutto’s husband, “Mr. Ten Percenter” Zardari, is back in the picture as quasi-regent for their son.

    DRJ (09f144)

  12. al qaeda and (Q) legue also involved in the martyrdom of ppp chairman benazir bhutto and chaudary shujait hussain ,arbab rahim and pervez ilahi is main enemy of the ppp chairperson they ordered these terrorist to kill her

    gopal (c9e835)


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