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NO BULLET, HEAD INJURY KILLED BENAZIR - PAK GOVT.
THEN, HOW BENAZIR DIED?
By M H Ahsan & Mariana Babbar
HYDERABAD & ISLAMABAD: Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In an explosive revelation, Pakistan's Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz on Friday said that Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds.
Nawaz said that Bhutto died from a head injury. At least seven doctors from the Rawalpindi General Hospital – where the leader was rushed immediately after the attack – say there were no bullet marks on Bhutto's body.
The doctors have submitted a report to the Pakistan government in which they say that no post-mortem was performed on Bhutto’s body and they had not received any instructions to perform one.
“The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn’t show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas there’s no wound other than that,” Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.
Government sources say there will be an investigation to determine why no autopsy was conducted.
According to agency reports doctors at the Rawalpindi General Hospital tried desperately for 41 minutes to revive former prime minister Bhutto after she was shot but failed in their efforts.
Bhutto was declared dead 41 minutes after she was brought the hospital's emergency department at 1735 hrs (local time) (1805 hrs IST) with open wounds on her left temporal bone from which "brain matter was exuding", the report said.
It said Bhutto was not breathing at the time and her pulse and blood pressure "were not recordable".
According to the report, "immediate resuscitation (process) was started" and she was taken to the operation theatre where she was attended by a team of doctors headed by Musaddiq Khan, principal of the Rawalpindi Medical College, Dawn reported Friday.
"Left antrolateral thoracotomy for open cardiac massage was performed," the hospital report said, adding: "In spite of all the possible measures she could not be revived and (was) declared dead at 1816 hrs IST (6.16 p.m.)."
An autopsy was not carried out at the hospital "because the district administration and police had not requested the hospital authorities (for this)", the report said.
Bhutto was shot not far from where Pakistan's first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was killed by an assassin's bullet on Oct 16, 1951.
Did Benazir Bhutto's links with the US administration prove to be her undoing? There were strong speculations in intelligence circles as well as on media on Friday that Benazir's alignment with the US may have been one reason why the assassins might have targetted the Pakistani Opposition leader.
Benazir was first targetted during her return to the country from her eight years of self-imposed exile on October 19. At least 136 people were killed and 500 others injured when twin suicide bombers attacked her homecoming procession in Karachi. There were enough indications that Benazir had a long and tangled list of enemies.
On Friday even as the world tried to come to terms with the shocking news of Benazir's assassination, an obscure Italian news agency, Adnkronos International (AKI), published a claim by the Al-Qaeda, claiming responsibility for the assassination of the former Pakistani prime minister.
"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen," AKI quoted Al-Qaeda's Afghanistan commander and spokesman Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid as saying. The website also said that the decision to assassinate Benazir was made in October by Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman Zawahiri.
Asia Times online also claimed to have spoken to Abu al-Yazid on the phone and al Yazid reportedly confirmed his claim during the conversation. "This is our first major victory against those who have been siding with infidels in a fight against Al-Qaeda and declared a war against mujahideen," he said.
While the FBI, US Department of Homeland Security and other security agencies are still trying to confirm the veracity of these claims, it is slowly becoming clearer that there was a list of people and groups which considered Benazir an arch enemy because of her alignment with the US and her vow to crack down on the increasingly popular radicalism spreading through the country.
Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud too had earlier issued threats against Benazir for her anti-jehadi stand. Benazir had time and again pledged to reform Pakistan in ways that would upset entrenched political interests, powerful fundamentalist religious organizations, and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
A Washington Post report on Friday said the US intelligence agencies were drawing up their own list of possible suspects in the assassination of Benazir and that list too includes Al-Qaeda.
More than the US connection itself, the Bush administration feels Al-Qaeda could have targetted Benazir "as she had spoken several times against Islamic terrorism during her campaign." Also, the outfit stood to gain the most by eliminating Benazir, they feel.
The US list of suspects reportedly also includes elements of Pakistan's own intelligence service. US officials told Washington Post that "it is equally plausible that the assassination was carried out with the support - or at least the tacit approval - of Pakistani government employees."
Most of the officials expressed doubt, however, that President Pervez Musharraf himself would have approved the killing.
Meanwhile, Enraged crowds rioted across Pakistan and hopes for democracy hung by a thread after Benazir Bhutto was gunned down on Thursday as she waved to supporters from the sunroof of her armored vehicle. The death of President Pervez Musharraf's most powerful opponent threw the nation into chaos just 12 days before elections, and threatened its already unsteady role as a key fighter against Islamic terror.
The murder of Benazir, one of Pakistan's most famous and enduring politicians, sparked violence that killed at least 16 people including three Pakistani policemen and plunged efforts to restore democracy to this nuclear-armed US ally into turmoil.
Another opposition politician, Nawaz Sharif, announced he was boycotting January 8 parliamentary elections in which Benazir was hoping to recapture the premiership. Pakistan's Prime Minister Mohammed Mian Soomro said on Friday the government has no immediate plan to postpone the elections.
Benazir, 54, was struck down amid scenes of blood and chaos as an unknown gunman opened fire and, according to witnesses and police, blew himself up, killing 20 other people.
Musharraf blamed Islamic terrorists, pledging in a nationally televised speech that "we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out."
President Bush, who spoke briefly by phone with Musharraf, looked tense as he spoke to reporters, denouncing the "murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy."
US intelligence officials said they were trying to determine the validity of purported claims of responsibility by al-Qaida, stressing they still couldn't say who was responsible.
Benazir's death marked yet another grim chapter in Pakistan's bloodstained history, 28 years after her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, another ex-prime minister, was hanged by a military dictatorship in the same city where she was killed.
"The repercussions of her murder will continue to unfold for months, even years," read a mournful editorial in the Dawn newspaper. "What is clear is that Pakistan's political landscape will never be the same, having lost one of its finest daughters."
Benazir will be buried near her father's grave in the family's ancestral village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on Friday afternoon, said Nazir Dkhoki, a spokesman for Benazir's party. He added that Benazir's husband and three children have arrived from Dubai to attend.
Her death left her Pakistan People's Party leaderless and plunged the Muslim nation of 160 million into violence and recriminations, with Benazir supporters accusing Musharraf's government of failing to protect her in the wake of death threats and previous attempts on her life.
As the news spread, supporters gathered at the hospital where Benazir had been taken, smashed glass doors, stoned cars and chanted, "Killer, Killer, Musharraf."
At least 10 people were killed across the country in the violence following the assassination, including one police officer who died of his wounds early on Friday.
Benazir's supporters in many towns burned banks, shops and state-run grocery stores. Some torched ruling party offices, Pakistani media reported.
On Friday, about 4,000 Benazir party supporters rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar and several hundred of them ransacked the office of the main pro-Musharraf party, burning furniture and stationery. The office was empty and no one was hurt.
Musharraf called senior staff into an emergency meeting to discuss a response to the killing and whether to postpone the election, an Interior Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Soomro, head of the interim government that is meant to oversee the vote, said that if there was any decision on delaying the election it would be done in consultation with all political parties.
"Right now the elections stand where they were," he told a news conference. "We will consult all the political parties to take any decision about it. I'm ready to meet them right now."
The killing appeared to shut off a possible avenue for a credible return to democracy after eight years under Musharraf's increasingly unpopular rule, and left a string of unanswered questions, chiefly whether it could strengthen Musharraf by eliminating a strong rival, or weaken him by sparking uncontrollable riots.
The US was struggling to reformulate its plan to stabilise the country based on a rapprochement between Benazir and Musharraf. Benazir had returned in October after nearly a decade in exile hoping for a power-sharing deal with Musharraf, but had become his fierce critic, accusing elements in the ruling party of backing militants to kill her.
Pakistani analysts were plunged into gloom.
"This assassination is the most serious setback for democracy in Pakistan," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore's University of Management Sciences. "It shows extremists are powerful enough to disrupt the democratic process."
Analyst Talat Masood, a retired general, said: "Conditions in the country have reached a point where it is too dangerous for political parties to operate."
Sharif, another former premier who now leads an opposition party, demanded Musharraf resign immediately and announced his party would boycott the elections, seen as vital to restoring democracy.
He also called for the resignation of Musharraf, a former army chief who toppled Sharif in a 1999 coup.
"Musharraf is the cause of all the problems. The federation of Pakistan cannot remain intact in the presence of President Musharraf," he said.
Next to Musharraf, Benazir was the best known political figure in the country, serving two terms as prime minister between 1988 and 1996.
An instantly recognizable figure with graceful features under an ever-present head scarf, she bore the legacy of her hanged father and was respected in the West for her liberal outlook and determination to combat Islamic extremism.
It was a theme she had often returned to in recent campaign speeches.
Addressing more than 5,000 supporters Thursday in Rawalpindi, Benazir dismissed the notion that Pakistan needed foreigners to help quell resurgent militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida in the area bordering Afghanistan.
"Why should foreign troops come in? We can take care of this, I can take care of this, you can take care of this," she said.
As Benazir left the rally in a white SUV, youths chanted her name and supportive slogans, said Sardar Qamar Hayyat, an official from Benazir's party who was about 10 yards away.
Despite the danger of physical exposure, a smiling Benazir stuck her head out of the sunroof and responded, he said.
"Then I saw a thin young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away. That was the time when I heard a blast and fell down," he said.
Benazir was rushed into surgery. A doctor on the surgical team said a bullet in the back of her neck damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head.
Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. She was given an open-heart massage, but the spinal cord damage was too great, he said.
"At 6:16 pm (1846 hrs IST) she expired," said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Benazir's party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.
Hours later, supporters carried Benazir's body out of the hospital in a plain wooden coffin.
Benazir had returned to Pakistan from nearly a decade in exile on October 18, and her homecoming parade in Karachi was also targeted by a suicide attacker, who killed more than 150 people. She narrowly escaped injury.
Rawalpindi, a former capital, has a history of political violence. The park where Benazir made her last speech is the same one where the country's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot to death in 1951. It is named after him.
Musharraf survived two bombing attacks here in 2003. Earlier that year, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was captured in Rawalpindi. In recent weeks, suicide bombers have repeatedly targeted security forces in the city.
Benazir's father was hanged in 1979 in Rawalpindi on charges of conspiracy to murder - an execution that led to violent protests across the country similar to those that raged Thursday.
Thursday's rally was Benazir's first since returning to Pakistan, Musharraf having forced her to scrap a meeting here last month citing security fears. Hundreds of riot police manned security checkpoints at the park.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who met with Benazir just hours before her death, called her a brave woman with a clear vision "for her own country, for Afghanistan and for the region - a vision of democracy and prosperity and peace."
Republican Patrick Kennedy, DR.I, visiting Pakistan with Senator Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he was just leaving his hotel room for dinner with Benazir at her home when he got the news.
"I couldn't believe it," he told The Associated Press by phone. "Her death really dashed the hope of many here in Pakistan and that's why there's so much disillusionment and anger being vented through these protests that are lighting up the sky tonight as people set fires all over the countryside."
US intelligence agencies said it was to soon to say who carried out the attack.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the agency "continues to work with our US intelligence community partners reviewing the al-Qaida claims for responsibility for any intelligence value. The validity of those claims are undetermined."
The statement came after a law enforcement official told the AP that a national FBI and Homeland Security bulletin to law enforcement agencies cited Islamist Web sites as saying al-Qaida had claimed responsibility. The official asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Director of National Intelligence spokesman Ross Feinstein said his agency was "in no position right now to confirm who may have been responsible."
The UN Security Council vigorously denounced the killing and urged "all Pakistanis to exercise restraint and maintain stability in the country."
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