Benazir Bhutto was murdered on this day ten years ago while returning from a public gathering in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Baagh. The investigations into the assassination have always remained shrouded in mystery.
According to some, there seems to be a deliberate effort to conceal the facts from the masses by clouding them with political rhetoric. The commoners seem convinced that Benazir’s murder was orchestrated by some of the leaders of the then ruling party with the help of some senior officials in the state institutions. There are others who blame her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of murder too. However, no clue has been found to date that would confirm any of the popular conspiracy theories about the gruesome killing.
To add to the misinformation, as Ziad Zafar pointed out in his brilliant story for Dawn ‘Who killed Benazir Bhutto?’ on Monday, the washing out of the scene immediately after the crime raised further doubts in the minds of an already angry public and as a matter of fact, it’s still unclear why the scene was hosed out. On the very next morning, the government released the details of an intercepted call between the alleged assailants and the then chief of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Baitullah Mehsud, in which the two exchanged details of the execution of the plan. The announcement was a bit too quick for the people to accept it as authentic. Besides, the Musharraf regime, after the Lal Masjid operation and the imposition of the emergency in November that year, had become too unpopular to be trusted for anything.
The following government of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) commissioned a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) led by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials. This and the subsequent inquiry commission made by United Nations (UN) upon government’s request could reach no conclusions since the evidence was already broken and several of the key players in the conspiracy had already died during the years preceding the murder.
The researches made by some curious investigative journalists, including Azaz Syed, Ziad Zafar, Owen Bennett-Jones and, of course, Herald Munoz, who headed the UN commission to investigate the murder, have pointed at a web of terrorist networks, global and local, to have carried out the assassination.
So here are some facts about Benazir Bhutto’s murder that must be brought to common knowledge:
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At least 18 people were associated with the attack
In his story, Ziad Zafar reconstructed the ‘chain of conspiracy’, which could involve at least 18 people. These included the mastermind and the financiers, i.e. Osama bin Laden, Abu Obaidah al-Masri and Baitullah Mehsud. The planners were Maulvi sb (Azizullah), Naseeb Khan and Ibad ur-Rehman. Four men, including Qari Ismail, Saddam, Kiskat and Rasheed Ahmed Turabi were the facilitators. Nasrullah, Hasnain and Rafaqat handled the assassins Bilal, Ikramullah and ‘a long-necked one’ Saeed. At least two men, Aitzaz Shah and Sher Zaman, currently under arrest were privy to the plot.
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Baitullah Mehsud’s baseless claim
After the assassination, the Musharraf government announced that the security agencies had intercepted a call to Baitullah Mehsud in which he was being congratulated for the successful execution of the plan. Baitullah was the then commander of the outlawed TTP. The recent investigations lead to the assumption that he was tasked by Osama bin Laden to carry out the attack. Mehsud had claimed some days after the attack that he hadn’t killed Benazir and went on to claim that ‘killing women was not a part of his culture’. This is a claim with no basis at all. Mehsud tribe inhabits South Waziristan Agency and has no such customs at all. In his monumental work ‘The Pathans’, Olaf Caroe has discussed this tribe in detail. Had he been alive, he’d certainly have rubbished the claim made by Baitullah.
Fact is that Baituallah Mehsud was only forced to condemn the murder and distance himself from it after the Mehsud tribe’s trucks were started to be torched in Sindh. These attacks resulted in losses of revenue to Baitullah Mehsud and thus came the denial.
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Murder planned by a Sudanese national
It is not known to many that the chief of al-Qaeda’s Pakistan chapter was an Egypt-born Sudanese national named Abu Obaidah al-Masri. The man had been appointed by Osama bin Laden himself to oversee the organisation’s Pakistan operations. It was him who acted as an emissary between Osama and Mehsud. Al-Masri is also believed to have planned the 1995 attack on Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad.
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Osama gave the orders
The plan might have been executed by Baitullah Mehsud’s men but the order was passed by no less than the most feared terrorist in the recent history Osama bin Laden. Osama had always been reluctant to carry out attacks in Pakistan, or any other Muslim country, since he believed that his war was against the United States, and not against the Muslims. However, he was convinced after the Lal Masjid operation by the more radical faction of the militant group to take on Pakistan as well. This is when Osama appointed Abu Obaidah al-Masri as his head of Pakistan operations.
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is also now believed to have been ordered by Osama himself. A document found from his Abbotabad compound after his assassination by the United States seals in May 2011 revealed that Osama had been sent a thorough brief by al-Masri on Benazir’s assassination just two days after it was carried out.
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Al-Qaeda’s hate for Benazir Bhutto
This wasn’t the first action by al-Qaeda against Benazir Bhutto. The terrorist outfit had been after the only female Muslim ruler in the world even in 1996. The former Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif is often blamed to have accepted money from Osama bin Laden to topple Benazir’s second government.
In 1995, Hizb ut-Tahrir had also attempted an ambitious overthrow of the Benazir government and at least four officers in Pakistan army had been convicted of collaboration. Hizb ut-Tahrir isn’t affiliated with al-Qaeda but the organisation has long been providing ideological recruits to various militant Islamist groups across the globe, including al-Qaeda.
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A failed attempt at Benazir’s life on Dec 26
Benazir Bhutto’s convoy was attacked in Karachi on October 18, 2007 upon her return from the self-imposed 11-year exile. At least 200 people were killed in the attack. This attack was also masterminded by al-Masri. However, it wasn’t the only attempt at her life after the return to Pakistan. On December 26, just one day ahead of her murder in Rawalpindi, the same murderers had planned to kill her in Peshawar as well. The two-time former PM had addressed a charged crowd at Arbab Niaz Stadium but the murderers failed to break into the inner circle of the security and the attempt was foiled.
It was also confirmed by Hasnain Gul, one of the collaborators, who said in his confessional statement that another attempt had failed a day earlier in Peshawar, after which the assailants had relocated to Rawalpindi.
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There were three assassins, not two
It is widely believed that the attack was carried out by two people, namely Bilal and Ikramullah. However, there was a third partner as well. Abdullah, aka Saeed, was the third person. Nobody knows where Saeed is. He might have died in the attack but it is also possible that he’d have escaped earlier.
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Support for Lal Masjd operation killed Benazir
Lal Masjid operation was carried out by the Musharraf administration in July 2007 while Benazir Bhutto was still in exile. However, she was the only mainstream politician in Pakistan who had openly expressed support for taking on the dreaded seminary. This convinced al-Qaeda that Benazir Bhutto was an American ‘puppet’ and thus needed to be taken out.
This operation is also considered to be responsible for having convinced Osama bin Laden that his outfit needed to take on Pakistan. The preceding years saw thousands of Pakistanis dying in terrorist attacks from Peshawar to Karachi.
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No chance of reaching the culprits
Though several investigations, private or otherwise, have chalked out a relatable flowchart of how things turned out and who did what but the responsibility might never be fixed on any person unless someone confesses to the killing since all the evidence is already broken.
Almost all the top players in the plan have died. Osama was killed by the US seals in Abbotabad operation, al-Masri died of Hepatitis just a couple of months after Benazir’s murder, Ibad ur-Rehman and Baituallh were killed in drone strikes, Azizullah and Naseeb Khan are also reported killed. Nasrullah and Qari Ismail were killed at a check post in Mohmand Agency just 18 days after Benazir’s assassination.
The UN commission and the FIA officials in the JIT have openly stated that all the evidence was destroyed. Saud Aziz, the in-charge of Rawalpindi police at the time of the assassination, who had refused the autopsy of Benazir’s body was sentenced to 17 years in prison in August this year along with Khurram Shahzad, the senior police official who had ordered the hosing out of the scene after the assassination.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Benazir’s son, refused to accept the decision that held no one but only two police officials as responsible for the murder. He has also blamed Musharraf for having deliberately sabotaged the security of his mother and ‘exploiting the situation’ to murder her.
Bhutto’s close friend Mark Seighal and journalist Ron Suskind have also confirmed that Benazir had received a call on September 25 from Musharraf in which the then president threatened her for her life if she decided to come to Pakistan. Musharraf rubbished the allegations terming them ‘laughable’.
