Bhutto's backers question account of killing
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Aides to Benazir Bhutto charge lax security allowed an assassin to approach within a few yards of her. But authorities insist it was her decision to open a hatch in her bombproof vehicle and chat with supporters that left her vulnerable.
The dispute intensified as a video of the attack and an inconclusive medical report raised new doubts about the official explanation of her death and bolstered calls for an independent, international investigation.
The new video footage, obtained by Britain's Channel 4 television, shows a man firing a pistol at Bhutto from just feet away as she poked her head out of the sunroof to greet a swarm of supporters. Her hair and shawl then jerked upward and she fell into the vehicle just before an explosion -- apparently detonated by a second man -- rocked the car.
No police were seen trying to push the crowd away.
Bhutto, who died Thursday in a gun and suicide bomb attack, reveled in personal campaigning, a trait that fueled her popularity but challenged her security forces.
"She was a very brave lady and sometimes when you see the supporters and cheering crowds there is a tendency not to heed the security department, and that's exactly what happened, unfortunately," Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.
Even before Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October from eight years in exile, she was warned about suicide squads. At her homecoming parade in Karachi, twin bombers struck her convoy, killing about 150 people, some of them the police assigned to protect her.
But she complained bitterly in recent months that the government of President Pervez Musharraf was not giving her proper protection and ignoring specific security requests.
"I have been made to feel insecure by his (Musharraf's) minions," she wrote in an October e-mail.
Meanwhile, parliamentary elections in Pakistan are set to be postponed by several weeks despite opposition demands they go ahead as planned on Jan. 8, officials said Monday, setting up a new political standoff.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, now the country's most prominent opposition leader, threatened street protests if the vote is delayed. "We will agitate," he told The Associated Press. "We will not accept this postponement."
Western governments are urging the government to go ahead with the polls without major delays. They see the elections as a key step in U.S.-backed plans to restore democracy to the nation as it battles Taliban and al-Qaida militants.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the government should set a specific date for new elections, but he said the timing was "up to the people of Pakistan."
Also, U.S. officials revealed Monday that the United States provided a steady stream of intelligence to Bhutto about threats against her before her assassination and advised her aides on how to boost security, although key suggestions appear to have gone unheeded.
Bhutto, a former prime minister who was leading her party into parliamentary elections, had blamed elements in the ruling party for the threats against her. The government said an al-Qaida-linked militant leader orchestrated her killing Thursday, a claim both the militant and Bhutto's aides rejected.
At the Rawalpindi rally where Bhutto was slain, hundreds of police ringed the park where she spoke, frisking those entering and making most pass through metal detectors. Police snipers were in at least four positions on nearby rooftops. A 10-yard area was cordoned off in front of the stage, which was inspected by security officials, inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs, and flanked by armed, plainclothes guards.
"There were ample security arrangements there," Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz said.
The attack occurred when Bhutto's vehicle drove outside the park after the rally. Cheema said her vehicle was protected by four police mobile units comprising a total of 25 or 26 officers.
"Why was the road not blocked and cleared of people when Benazir Bhutto was coming out, and why was the security so lax in and outside the ground?" asked Aghasiraj Durrani, a senior official in Bhutto's party who helped arrange Bhutto's security.
Talat Masood, a former army general and security analyst, said specially trained officers should have been scanning the crowd for potential attackers and Bhutto's guards should have created a security perimeter.
"The security undoubtedly was below the mark, much below the standards required for a leader of her stature," he said.
Bhutto's aides, including one who rushed her to the hospital, said they were certain she was shot and the video appeared to bolster that claim. She was buried Friday without an autopsy.
The government, citing a report from doctors at the hospital where she died, said she was not hit by bullets but killed when the force of the blast slammed her head into a lever on the sunroof.
However, a copy of the medical report sent to reporters said the doctors had made no determination about whether she was shot or not. It gave the cause of death as "open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to cardiopulmonary arrest."
The report, signed by seven doctors at the hospital, said no surrounding wounds or blackening were seen around Bhutto's head wound. "No foreign body was felt in the wound. Wound was not further explored," said the report, released by Athar Minallah, a prominent opposition lawyer who is a member of the hospital board.
Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, said Sunday he had refused an autopsy because he did not trust Musharraf's government to carry out a credible investigation. He also rejected the government's account about his wife's death as "lies."
Cheema said Bhutto's family was free to exhume her body.
The dispute undermined already shaky confidence in Musharraf, a former army chief who seized power in a 1999 coup. Zardari, who now leads Bhutto's party, demanded a U.N. probe similar to the one investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Even before her assassination, security around Bhutto was inconsistent. A reporter walked into a rally days before she was killed without being frisked or passing through a metal detector. Her supporters pressed up against the stage.
During Bhutto's 10-hour, slow moving procession through the streets of Karachi on Oct. 18, she refused to use a bulletproof glass cubicle built atop her truck, standing instead along a railing to greet the crowds.
"She was a political leader. Meeting the people was something she could not avoid," Minallah said.
Anne Tyrell, a spokeswoman for the private security firm Blackwater, said it had been approached about possibly providing security for Bhutto, "but unfortunately, an agreement was never reached."
Durrani, the party official, said foreign guards would have been little help as they could not distinguish easily between local people. He said the party had used its own armed guards for Bhutto.
Musharraf himself survived two assassination attempts in December 2003. Afterward, security was tightened for top officials, and roads are sealed off for Musharraf or the prime minister.
But security for others is spotty.
Days before Bhutto's killing, former Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao narrowly survived a suicide bombing in a mosque at his compound that killed 56 worshippers -- the second such attack against him in eight months.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif -- who the government said was also under threat -- complained Monday that security arrangements for him were "absolutely inadequate."
On a recent campaign trip to Kashmir, Sharif was trailed by a single police van as he rode in an apparently unarmored sport utility vehicle. At one point, he stuck his head out of the sunroof and greeted hundreds of supporters, much like Bhutto was to do weeks later.
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Associated Press reporter Zarar Khan contributed to this story from Naudero, Pakistan.
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{Election delay likely in Pakistan creating new standoff after} Bhutto assassination
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Bhutto's party, now effectively controlled by her husband, and Sharif's opposition movement both feel they could be helped at the polls by widespread sympathy at Bhutto's killing last week at a campaign rally and accusations that allies of President Pervez Musharraf had a role in the murder.
But political instability and the technical challenges of holding the vote after nationwide riots following the killing led to widespread expectations that the balloting will be delayed.
The Election Commission, which critics say is stacked with officials loyal to Musharraf, said it had recommended to the government an unspecified delay, but would announce its final decision on Tuesday.
A senior government official predicted the elections would be postponed by "six weeks or so as the environment to hold free and fair elections is not conducive." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.
Foreign election monitors cautioned that a full observation mission would be "impossible" if the polls went ahead next week because the unrest had disturbed their preparations. "We cannot follow our standard methods if the date stays Jan. 8," said Mathias Eick, a spokesman for the EU-led mission, saying the best it could manage was a limited "assessment" of the polls.
After days of rioting that left at least 44 dead, life in many Pakistani cities began returning to normal, though soldiers and police patrolled many areas.
The political uncertainty caused Pakistan's stock markets to tumble on the first day of trading since the killing.
Sharif, who was toppled by Musharraf then exiled for seven years before his return to Pakistan in November, intensified his attacks on the U.S-backed former general, saying a free and fair vote would be impossible so long as he remained president.
"He is a one-man calamity," he said in his hometown of Lahore. "The United States should see that Musharraf has not limited or curbed terrorism. In fact terrorism is now stronger than ever before with more sinister aspects."
The United States had hoped that Bhutto, a liberal Muslim popular in the West, would become prime minister after the elections and enter into a power-sharing agreement with Musharraf -- a combination seen as the most potent force against al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the country.
Sharif said if his party won the vote it would not work with Musharraf, suggesting any new government may be short-lived.
"You want me to work with such a man? He is the root cause of all the problems in the country," he said.
On Sunday, Bhutto's political party named her 19-year-old son, Bilawal Zardari, as its symbolic leader and left day-to-day control to her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, a former Cabinet minister accused of massive corruption during Bhutto's time as prime minister.
Zardari, who has accused Musharraf of responsibility for his wife's murder by failing to provide proper security for her, did not rule out the possibility of cooperating with the president if his party was in a position to form the next government.
"We will come to that position when we win the election," he told reporters.
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Matthew Rosenberg contributed to this report from Lahore.