Benazir Bhutto - SZABIST

Who killed Bhutto? Interestingly, the question that comes to mind is not only who did it, but why and
what they would have to gain in her absence, especially with the forthcoming elections around the
corner. For militants with Al-Qaeda linkages, murdering a westernised, secular woman leader who
they saw as a traitor to their faith, culture and society would be incentive enough in itself. The
elections would be left in jeopardy with President Musharraf’s position even shakier than before.
Commenting on Bhutto’s assassination, Jason Burke, a senior journalist with The Observer and author
of “Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam” suggests that this kind of high-profile assassination,
which has never really been al-Qaeda’s style until now, would be exactly the sort of spectacular attack
they have been seeking for some period without getting and knowing it would receive media attention.
American experts have also pinned the blame thus far on al-Qaeda linked elements with close ties to
Taliban leaders within Pakistan’s embattled northern belt.
Endorsing the above, the Pakistani interior ministry has announced the hand of Baitullah Mehsud, an
influential Taliban leader fighting against the state in South Waziristan. His spokesman denies the
involvement. If these linkages are authentic, then one would say that an entire cluster of cells could
have had a role in Bhutto’s assassination including internal jihadi groups flourishing under the
auspices of certain elements within Pakistani intelligence coupled with connections to al-Qaeda’s.
Ms Bhutto was undoubtedly a fearless woman with conviction, or else, this daughter of the east
wouldn’t have returned to a very turbulent Pakistan after eight years in self-exile. The threats to her
life didn’t scare her, she said. “It’s all in God’s hands,” Benazir told reporters when returning on
October 18. The Pakistan she left in the late nineties was not the same country she returned to after
years wooing the west to support her politics of return, alongside raising her children, between doing
the lecture circuit in America and Europe. She claimed on numerous occasions that she was aware of
the political risks she would take in the near future.
Benazir wrote in her memoir, of what life as a young woman at Harvard felt like. “I was amongst a
sea of women who felt as unimpeded by their gender as I did.” At Oxford, she adopted a westernised
way of life, spending winters at the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad. Her passions at the time included
reading royal biographies and woozy romances, and shopping at Harrods in London — a habit she
maintained throughout the rest of her life. It was right after her Oxford years that Benazir was thrust
into the heart of Pakistani politics after her father was imprisoned and later hanged by General Zia-ul-
Haq.
She writes of her last meeting with her father, through a metal lattice at the Rawalpindi central prison.
“But I did not cry. Daddy told me not to,” she recalled. There is pathos in her life’s story: it almost
reminds of this woman of contradictory and complex behaviour. Years spent under house arrest and
even in jail left no time for her to fall in love with a life partner and so an arranged marriage. She was
destined, albeit reluctant to adopt the Bhutto political mantle, her politics included her father’s popular
slogans, roti, kapra and makan (bread, clothing and shelter) and then recently, her promise of
employment and education to the masses. Pinky, as Benazir was named, always enjoyed the finer
things in life, attributing this penchant to her sense of entitlement as the daughter and heir of a feudal
land-owning family.
Was she a saviour this time around for the lost people of Pakistan or a wily politician who thought she
might be invincible, despite warnings that her security could not be guaranteed. Why did she flirt with
danger and death? Was she simply courageous and stubborn? In an interview in the nineties to the
BBC, Ms Bhutto, once said that watching her father, ZAB die, in many ways prepared her for the