Islamist elements in Pakistan’s military unhappy with President Asif Zardari are reported to be plotting to remove their country’s civilian government and replace it with a military dictatorship.
Two days after General David Petraeus, chief of US Central Command, dismissed fears of an imminent military coup, Pakistan’s defense minister, Ahmed Mukhtar, was prevented Thursday evening by border officials from leaving the country to visit China.
According to one report, there are 248 such names on the border authorities’ list, including other high-ranking government members, of Pakistanis now denied exit rights.
The ostensible reason for Mukhtar’s detainment was that he, and other ministers of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), is facing corruption charges and a possible jail term.
Last Wednesday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court struck down the amnesty, called the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which protected them and 8,000 other bureaucrats from prosecution, reviving old charges.
The Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the 2007 NRO amnesty that paved the way for Zardari’s murdered wife and then PPP leader, Benazir Bhutto, to return to Pakistan.
With the Supreme Court’s ruling, several ministers are now expected to resign, endangering the survival of the Zardari civilian government. Opposition parties are also calling for Zardari himself to step down, but he has presidential immunity from prosecution. The Supreme Court’s NRO ruling, though, is expected to leave Pakistan’s president open to legal proceedings regarding his eligibility as a candidate in last year’s election.
Columnist and former Pakistani activist Tarek Fatah writes that “religious right–wing backers of the Taliban and al Qaeda” in Pakistan’s military-industrial complex are behind this destruction of the Zardari government by legal means.
“Working from within the government, military intelligence was able to coax a junior minister to release a list of supposedly corrupt politicians and public officials in the country,” wrote Fatah. “Leading them was Mr. Zardari himself – notwithstanding the fact that before he was elected president, he had been imprisoned for more than a decade by the military without a single conviction.”
Zardari came to office a year ago last August, taking over from disgraced military ruler Pervez Musharraf who resigned under threat of impeachment. Musharraf had come to power after staging the last military coup against a civilian president in 1999. Pakistan has been ruled by military leaders for about half of its 62 year history, so military takeovers are almost a part of the political fabric.
Army rule usually lasts about a decade before a civilian government is re-established which lasts an almost equal length of time. The current military threat to civilian rule is somewhat unusual, as Zardari has been in office only a year and four months.
A main reason for the military coups, though, is that the civilian politicians’ corruption and incompetence eventually become too ruinous for the country.
PAKISTAN'S Supreme Court has thrown the government into further turmoil by overruling an amnesty protecting President Asif Ali Zardari, ministers and 8000 bureaucrats from prosecution.
The decision effectively revives thousands of criminal and corruption charges against public officials quashed under the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance, including a money-laundering case pending against Mr Zardari in Swiss courts.
While Mr Zardari enjoys presidential immunity from prosecution, the judgment leaves at least 30 politicians, including close ally and Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar and thousands of bureaucrats vulnerable to jail terms.
However, the Supreme Court's late-night ruling is expected to pave the way for a legal challenge to Mr Zardari's eligibility to contest last year's presidential elections and his constitutional immunity.
Hafiz Pirzada, a former law minister and lead lawyer for the petition, hailed the decision as a "defining moment for the judiciary", adding there was "no such thing as unconditional immunity".
That view was backed by former chief justice Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqqi, who said the constitution did not protect a president from cases brought in foreign countries. Pressure on the unpopular President is now mounting, with opposition parties calling for him to step down within minutes of the verdict.
Mr Zardari's chief spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said yesterday: "There is no question of the President resigning". The party was prepared to "face any fallout" from the verdict, he added.
A 17-member bench of the Supreme Court found the controversial NRO introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf in 2007 was unconstitutional.
"(The) promulgation of the NRO seems to be against the national interest . . . thus it violates various provisions of the constitution," Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said.
The petition to overrule the NRO has thrown up hugely damaging evidence against the President, including claims he amassed assets worth $US1.5 billion during his slain wife Benazir Bhutto's time as prime minister.
Documents provided by the National Accountability Bureau to the Supreme Court alleged Mr Zardari was facing charges of amassing assets beyond his means, including six cases of kickbacks and misuse of power, when General Musharraf introduced the NRO in October 2007.
A bureau official said about $US60m received in alleged illegal commissions had been deposited in Swiss bank accounts held by Mr Zardari and Bhutto.
The court has ordered the government to ask the Swiss courts immediately to revive their action against Mr Zardari and reinstate the Pakistan government as a damaged party in the case.
But the judgment was scathing of the bureau's officials, accusing them of a lack of impartiality and calling for their replacement. It ordered a special cell of the Supreme Court to monitor all resumed corruption and criminal cases.
Mr Zardari earned himself the unflattering moniker "Mr 10 Per Cent" during his wife's time in power, because of his rumoured demands for kickbacks, and spent 11 years in jail while facing trial on corruption and murder charges. He was released on bail in 2004.
The NRO amnesty, which covered 3478 cases ranging from murder, embezzlement and write-offs of bank loans worth millions of dollars, was part of a deal brokered by the US and Britain that allowed Bhutto to return from exile and seal a power-sharing deal with the military ruler. She was assassinated two months later, leaving Mr Zardari to lead her Pakistan People's Party to victory in national polls in February last year.
Meanwhile, the government is also under pressure from the US to expand its campaign to target Afghan Taliban leaders believed to be harbouring within its territory.
The New York Times reported yesterday that Pakistani military and intelligence services appeared to be retaliating with a harassment campaign against US diplomats, refusing to extend or approve visas for more than 100 officials. One diplomat said the harassment campaign had led to the forced suspension of several US aid programs.
ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari holds $1.5 billion in assets across the world, Pakistan's main anticorruption body alleged in a report delivered Tuesday to the country's Supreme Court.
The court is considering the constitutionality of an amnesty protecting the embattled leader and thousands of other officials from corruption charges.
The National Accountability Bureau, a politically independent government investigative body, gave the court a list of allegations involving Mr. Zardari, following a request by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.
Mr. Zardari's spokesman denied the allegations and said the asset list was inaccurate and fabricated to victimize Mr. Zardari.
"Reports of $1.5 billion of national and foreign assets allegedly belonging to President Zardari are no more than a regurgitation of decade-old unproven politically motivated allegations," said Farhatullah Babar, the chief spokesman for the president.
The court will also consider whether a presidential immunity provided by the constitution applies to cases of alleged corruption that took place before Mr. Zardari took office last year.
The hearings could open the way for challenges to the legality of Mr. Zardari's presidency, constitutional law experts said.
That would add further tension in Pakistan at a time when the U.S. ally has been hit by a series of militant attacks across country.
On Tuesday, suspected Islamist militants launched a gun, rocket and suicide attack on an intelligence office in the central Pakistan city of Multan, killing 12 people. The raid came a day after twin bombings at a market in the eastern city of Lahore killed 49.
Tuesday's attack ripped the facades off several buildings in a part of the town largely reserved for government and security agencies. Also damaged was a building housing an office of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
The National Accountability Bureau alleged that Mr. Zardari accumulated wealth "beyond his means." The bureau said Mr. Zardari owned properties and bank accounts in the U.S., U.K., Spain and several other countries.
This wealth was largely accumulated while his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was serving as prime minister in the 1990s, investigators said. They alleged the money had come from kickbacks and commissions on government deals.
Mr. Zardari spent a total of 11 years in jail in Pakistan while facing trial for corruption and murder charges. He was released on bail in 2004 and allowed to leave the country.
Six cases against him remained open, relating to alleged corruption. Those charges were dropped under an amnesty enforced in October 2007.
The amnesty, which was brokered by the U.S. and U.K., was introduced through a decree by former President Pervez Musharraf under a deal that paved the way for Ms. Bhutto to return home from self-imposed exile.
Ms. Bhutto was assassinated two months later, leaving Mr. Zardari to lead her party to victory in general elections in February 2008 and then become president after Gen. Musharraf resigned in August 2008.
A 17-member bench of the Supreme Court on Monday began hearing appeals by two political opponents of Mr. Zardari against the amnesty, which expired on Nov. 28 when an effort to renew it failed in Parliament.
The anticorruption body's report said Mr. Zardari had bought properties in the U.S., Britain, Spain, France and other countries through offshore companies he owned and through frontmen, according to Retired Lt. Gen. Shahid Aziz, a former chief of the National Accountability Bureau who resigned in July 2007 to protest the termination of investigations into Mr. Zardari's activities.
In the largest single payment, investigators said they had discovered a company dealing in gold in the Middle East deposited at least $10 million into an account controlled by Mr. Zardari after the Bhutto government gave the dealer a monopoly on gold imports. The money was then deposited into several bank accounts of companies owned by Mr. Zardari, investigators said. Charges in the case were dropped with the amnesty in 2007, and the gold dealer denied wrongdoing.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged U.S. support for Islamabad's campaign against Islamic militants, after a car bomb struck a busy market in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing 100 people, most of whom were women and children.
"I strongly condemn the cowardly attack today in Afghanistan," Clinton said.
"My thoughts and prayers are with all those who were injured and the families who lost loved ones."
More than 200 people were wounded in the blast in the main northwestern city of Peshawar, the deadliest in a surge of attacks by suspected insurgents this month. The government blamed militants seeking to avenge an army offensive launched this month against Al Qaeda and Taliban in their stronghold close to the Afghan border.
The bombing was the deadliest since explosions hit homecoming festivities for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi in October 2007, killing about 150 people. Bhutto was later slain in a separate attack.
Wednesday's bomb destroyed much of the Mina Bazaar in Peshawar's old town, a warren of narrow alleys clogged with stalls and shops selling dresses, toys and cheap jewelry that drew many female shoppers and children in the conservative city.
The blast collapsed buildings, including a mosque, and set scores of shops ablaze. The wounded sat amid burning debris and parts of bodies as a huge plume of gray smoke rose above the city.
Crying for help, men tried to pull survivors from beneath wreckage. One man carried away a baby with a bloody face and a group of men rescued a young boy covered in dust, but others found only bodies of the dead. A two-story building collapsed as firefighters doused it with water, triggering more panic.
"There was a deafening sound and I was like a blind man for a few minutes," said Mohammad Usman, who was wounded in the shoulder. "I heard women and children crying and started to help others. There was the smell of human flesh in the air."
UNITED Nations investigators are preparing to question former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, amid mounting doubts over official versions of how she died and claims of a cover-up.
The Weekend Australian Magazine reveals today evidence that a bullet - probably sniper fire from a high-velocity rifle - killed the former prime minister.
The Musharraf regime said a "bump on the head" resulting from a Taliban or al-Qa'ida suicide bomber killed Bhutto on December 27, 2007, shortly before an election she was expected to win.
This evidence contradicts the regime's claim that the murder was the work of the Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US unmanned drone attack.
There is no history of the militants using sniper fire - or even regular gunfire - in any of the hundreds of suicide attacks they have mounted in Pakistan.
Also revealed in The Weekend Australian Magazine is detail of the cover-up that followed Bhutto's murder. The crime scene in Liaquat Bagh, a park in Rawalpindi, was washed with high-pressure hoses within 45 minutes of the blast, destroying almost all forensic evidence.
Naheed Khan, Bhutto's political secretary for 23 years, who cradled her head as she died, told The Weekend Australian Magazine: "There were bullets coming from different directions. There are lots of high buildings overlooking the area. This was a typical intelligence (agency) operation."
Ms Khan's husband, senator Safdar Abbasi, who is also a doctor, was in the Toyota Landcruiser when Bhutto was attacked. "The way she died - her instant death - suggests very sharp sniper fire. A typical intelligence (agency) operation."
The Weekend Australian Magazine reveals that, despite the law in Pakistan mandating autopsies in all cases of murder, and doctors attending Bhutto telling police that one should be carried out, none was performed on her or others who died in Liaquat Bagh.
Within hours, her body had been flown to Sindh province for burial, without a full forensic examination.
There is no suggestion of any involvement by Mr Musharraf in her murder. But the UN investigators want to question the former general. Given the authority he wielded in Pakistan, including over the army and its agencies, Mr Musharraf, 66, is thought to be in a better position than most to cast light on events surrounding the assassination.
At his apartment off London's Edgeware Road, living under the protection of the British government, Mr Musharraf has appeared untroubled by demands to bring him back to Pakistan. He has played bridge with friends and eaten out during the holy month of Ramadan.
An internationally brokered secret deal allowed Mr Musharraf to step down and assured his future security.
After long delays in getting Security Council approval for its mission, the UN investigators started looking into Bhutto's death in July and are expected to report to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this year.
The investigators are reported to be preparing to talk to people in London and Washington, including CNN presenter Wolf Blitzer. On October 20, 2007, Bhutto sent Blitzer an email, through a friend, reading: "If it is God's will, nothing will happen to me. But if anything happened to me, I would hold Pervez Musharraf responsible."
Investigations into Bhutto's killing are the subject of controversy in Pakistan.
TALIBAN militants, who struck a peace deal in the Swat Valley in February in exchange for the implementation of sharia law, have begun extending their reach deeper into Pakistan, confirming US fears the agreement would embolden extremists.
The Islamic militants, who waged a two-year campaign of beheadings and bombings in Swat before the Pakistan Government ceded to their demands, fought a fierce battle with troops and tribal leaders in the neighbouring Gokand Valley yesterday.
Twenty-one people were killed in the clashes -- 16 militants, three police officers and two local militia men -- after tribal elders failed to convince the Taliban in several rounds of talks to leave the area. Pakistani media reported the militants said they were under orders from Tehrik-e-Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud to consolidate their hold on the region, less than 200km north of the capital, Islamabad.
Mehsud has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Pakistan in recent weeks, including the ambush of Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore in which eight people died. He is also suspected of masterminding the December 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
The clash shows the size of the challenge faced by the US in its bid to suppress the insurgency in Pakistan, which is not only feeding Islamic extremism across the border in Afghanistan but also threatens to destabilise Pakistan's civilian Government. The US believes the bulk of the Taliban leadership is in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen accused Mehsud this week of orchestrating attacks on NATO forces, including US troops, in Afghanistan. Admiral Mullen and US special envoy Richard Holbrooke were in New Delhi last night for talks aimed at convincing India to pull back its rhetoric on the disputed territory of Kashmir, so that Pakistan can concentrate its troops on the border with Afghanistan.
Mr Holbrooke said last night the threat posed by al-Qa'ida and its allies could be met only with the joint efforts of India and Pakistan, as well as the US.
"For the first time since partition (in 1947), India, Pakistan and the United States face a common threat, a common challenge and we have a common task," he said. "Now that we face a common threat we must work together."
US President Barack Obama's new strategy for stabilising the region, unveiled last month, includes 21,000 additional troops for Afghanistan and a tripling of Pakistan's civilian aid budget -- conditional on greater co-operation from Pakistan. The US has long suspected Pakistan of taking its money to fight militants while at the same time supporting Islamic extremists in order to maintain leverage in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
But Pakistan civilian and military leaders hit back at those accusations, warning it would be difficult to bridge the "trust deficit" if the US continued to ignore the contributions of the Pakistan army in the war on terror.
America gained an import new ally in the War on Terror yesterday, with the swearing in of Asif Ali Zardari as Pakistan’s new president. Appropriately, the ceremony took place before a portrait of another steadfast Pakistani supporter of the United States: Zardari’s late wife Benazir Bhutto, who led the Pakistan People’s Party until her assassination last year by Islamic terrorists.
Zardari’s ascendance heralds a welcome development. The previous president, Pervez Musharraf, took a lukewarm stance toward the growing Islamist threat in Pakistan. By contrast, Zardari has vowed to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces occupying the country’s frontier provinces.
Zardari has no illusions about the difficulty of the task. “We are in the eye of the storm,” he said yesterday. “I consider that an opportunity. I intend to take that and make it our strength.” Zardari’s predecessor, to be sure, made similar promises, but repeatedly failed to act. Why should the new president prove different?
One reason is that, for Zardari, the struggle against the Islamists is as much a personal battle as a struggle for security. Terrorists not only murdered his wife, but they also attempted to kill Yousef Gilani, Pakistan’s prime minister last week. Moreover, Pakistani civilians are now under brutal attack from jihadists who launch daily bombs into cities from their outposts in Pakistan’s North West province and tribal areas. On election day last weekend, one truck bomb killed more than 30 people. The attack was interpreted as a message to Zardari. Thus, while Zardari is realistic -- “I think at the moment [the terrorists] definitely have the upper hand,” he soberly told the BBC – there is every reason to think that he will make good on his pledge to face down the jihadists. Read more ...
Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent in Islamabad | September 06, 2008
ASIF Ali Zardari, the "unsavoury character" set to become president later today of nuclear-armed Pakistan, declared yesterday that he was "doing it for Benazir (Bhutto)", his wife who was assassinated last December.
In an evocative final message as electors gathered in Islamabad, the controversial Mr Zardari, widely known as "Mr Ten Per Cent" for allegations of kickbacks during his wife's two terms in office, said he was still in mourning for her and that his election as president would be a "huge step" in the country's transition from dictatorship to democracy.
"I want to help complete this process," he declared. "I owe it to my party and my country, but above all to my wife, who lost her life striving to make Pakistan free, pluralist and democratic."
Recalling his nine years in prison on corruption charges "as a hostage to my wife's career and my party's future", Mr Zardari, poised to assume powers even greater than those held by former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf, added: "Those years made me a stronger person and hardened my resolve to fight for democracy. I wish I could do it at my wife's side. Now I must do it in my wife's place."
The multi-millionaire, 52, who in recent weeks has been subject to questions about his mental health, added: "My family has already paid the ultimate price for our commitment to democracy.
"I hope that my democratic election will seal the victory of democracy over dictatorship and, at long last, allow our country to defeat the terrorist threat and address the people's needs."
As he laid claim to the political legacy of Ms Bhutto as well as that of her hanged father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, however, new polls showed the majority of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population remained deeply suspicious of Mr Zardari. While the Bush administration will probably welcome his climb to the presidency, given his stated intention to align closely with Washington in the war on terrorism, there are widespread fears that his elevation could lead to further instability in the nuclear-armed country.
On paper, Pakistan's president is a ceremonial head of state, but the post, like the presidential palace Mr Zardari is likely to inherit, has undergone a vast expansion. He will have his finger on the nuclear button, and will possess the authority to fire and appoint the all-important army chief and to summarily dismiss the government.
A leading Pakistani commentator, Shafqar Mahmood, summed up the apprehension about Mr Zardari yesterday by saying, "He desperately needs an image makeover. Indeed, he has to become the exact opposite to what he is perceived to be.
"His current image is that of a very unsavoury individual, unreliable in the extreme and prone to crime whether in terms of financial improprieties or strong-arm tactics. He has to reverse each one of these perceptions."
Despite the misgivings, Mr Zardari is expected to win handsomely when votes are counted today, although MPs from jihadi militant-infested tribal areas yesterday withdrew their pledged support in protest at the Government's military offensive against al-Qa'ida and Taliban fighters. Story
Bruce Loudon, South Asia Correspondent | September 01, 2008
BENAZIR Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, has purged many of his assassinated wife's top advisers from the ruling Pakistan People's Party as he ramps up his bid to become Pakistan's president this week.
Latest polling shows that despite the endless series of allegations against him, Mr Zardari could win as many as 60 per cent of the votes cast when the country's electoral college meets on Saturday to elect a president.
The strong polling figures came despite a fierce denunciation of Mr Zardari as "corrupt and utterly illiterate" by the elder statesman of the Bhutto dynasty, Mumtaz Ali Bhutto.
"It's unfortunate for the country and ... for the party that a man of his background should become ... president," Mr Bhutto said.
"He is totally corrupt and utterly illiterate ... if he becomes the next president, what will be left of this country?"
At the same time, Benazir Bhutto's closest aide and confidante for more than 20 years, Naheed Khan, said party workers were "disillusioned and don't know what to do" about the rise of Mr Zardari.
Ms Khan, the wife of PPP senator Safdar Abbasi, was sitting next to Benazir Bhutto the day she was assassinated in Rawalpindi, on December 27 last year. On the other side of the PPP leader was her deputy, Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
Both Ms Khan and Mr Fahim have been purged by the PPP under Mr Zardari.
Mr Khan, a formidable woman who survived the attempt to kill Bhutto in Karachi when she returned home from exile in October last year, was for years the PPP leader's closest confidante, sometimes to the chagrin of her husband, who is said to have resented the influence she exerted.
Now she, along with many others who were close to Bhutto, have been sidelined by the new leadership under Mr Zardari.
Ms Khan was quoted yesterday as saying: "We were with Bibi (Benazir) through all the trials and tribulations and we loved our work with her. Party workers are disillusioned and don't know what to do. They have no access to him or people who work with him."
Another Bhutto adviser, Nawab Yusuf Talpur, told London's Sunday Times that only four or five members of Bhutto's team had made the transition to the Zardari camp.
"Most of the people trusted by Bibi are not trusted by him. Benazir had a vision and had the capacity to hold this party together. Her legacy is not being handled in the way we expected," he said.
Party stalwarts are outraged that Mr Zardari's aides have blamed Ms Khan for Bhutto's death. They have accused her of failing to protect Bhutto from the assassins who killed her in a sniper and suicide bomb attack.
Mr Zardari spent 11 years in jailon corruption and other charges and is widely blamed for Bhutto's two governments being dismissed, in 1990 and 1996.
Mr Zardari at the weekend snubbed calls to step aside from the presidential race. He also disclosed that his sister, Faryal Talpur, had withdrawn her nomination as his "covering" candidate in Saturday's election.
Pakistan's election system means that those who run for public office nominate "covering" candidates as possible substitutes in case they decide to withdraw at the last minute.
There had been speculation that Mr Zardari might withdraw in favour of Ms Talpur.
At the weekend, worried security officials, fearing a possible assassination attempt against Mr Zardari, rushed him from his Islamabad home to the heavily guarded compound of the prime minister's residence in the capital.
Pakistan's security forces have launched a major offensive against al-Qa'ida and Taliban-linked militants in the country's tribal areas, and there are fears of a retaliatory campaign of stepped-up suicide bombings and assassination attempts in the country's urban centres, with Mr Zardari a primary target.
Security authorities yesterday said they were tracking the movements of a team of suicide bombers believed to have left South Waziristan to attack targets in the Islamabad and Rawalpindi area.
Pakistan's top security official, Rehman Malik, announced yesterday that the all-out offensive would be suspended for the month of Ramadan, starting today. But he warned there would be no ceasefire and that if the militants "fired even one bullet, we will fire 10 in response".
In another sign of the country's new, "get tough" strategy towards the militants, Dr Malik disclosed for the first time that whenever suicide bombers were identified, their homes and villages would be destroyed - a tactic imported from Israel.
Reports yesterday said the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, had returned home "well pleased and very satisfied" from last week's secret, shipboard meeting in the Indian Ocean with Pakistan's army boss, General Afshaq Kayani.
"I came away from the meeting very encouraged that the focus is where it needs to be and that the military-to-military relationship we're building with Pakistan is getting stronger every day," Admiral Mullen said.
Harvard- and Oxford-educated Benazir Bhutto, who twice served Pakistan as its Prime Minister, was assassinated yesterday by Taliban and al Qaeda supporters in a spectacularly violent act in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. This act threw the country into a spasm of violence on the eve of national elections planned for January 8th. The agony of Pakistan splattered across the small screen was palpable, as was the transformation of Bhutto into a martyr for democracy in the world’s media. That was reflected in comments from leaders in the US, France, India, Russia and even Iran.
The lurking danger in Pakistan is that the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was also the subject of a failed assassination attempt, has some skeletons in his closet. He tried to befriend bin Laden as a means of co-opting Al Qaeda. Further, he is allied with Islamist elements in the Pakistani government intelligence service, the ISI, which might facilitate a Taliban-like takeover. It was the late Ms. Bhutto who in recent correspondence accused the ISI of trying to assassinate her.
The prospect of a Taliban-like takeover is daunting. Pakistan is acknowledged to have 60 nuclear heads, developed by the infamous Dr. A.Q. Khan, presently under house arrest. He also facilitated transfer of key nuclear technology to Iran from Pakistan. The fear is that the only bastion of opposition to the Islamists may collapse the largely secular Army of Pakistan. Without that bastion, the country might become another Islamic Republic akin to that in Shia-dominated Iran. Read more ...
Now that my article about Benazir Bhutto has been up for a few hours and I have had a chance to read the replies to it, be they good, bad, weird, stupid, hate full or just plain ignorant, I would like to make a point.
The way this article was written has a lot in common with the piece about Aqsa Pervez who refused to wear her Hijab when she was out in public.
There is a great similarity between the story of a teenage girl who didn't want to wear a Hijab and was killed for it, and the fictional account of Benazir Bhutto being killed for refusing to take hers off.
The Hijab is not the reason for these killings and is only one of the links to these two events. They are but a symbol of the real problem, and that is one of other people trying to impose a set of beliefs or morals or practises on someone else.
Impose their values when they have no legal or moral right to do so!
The story about Aqsa Pervez is not a story of the Hijab or of religion, but rather a story about a domineering, controlling, vain and cruel father attempting to bend a daughter to his will, and when that failed, to resort to violence to achieve his objective.
The same can be said of Ms. Bhutto's case with the fictional Hijab. Benazir Bhutto was killed by people who could not achieve their political objectives by any other means and so used religion as an excuse to put an end to what they considered to be a threat from her.
In either case it was a means to an end that happens when individuals start to think they have a right to dictate the morals, beliefs and practices of other people.
It is one of the worst failings of Humanity when people believe they have the duty to subject others to their way of thinking.
Especially when they use God as a justification.
*This is really the proverbial "Devils" work and should be recognized as such!
*From the book, The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - In a dramatic move that has stunned and confused nearly everyone in the Middle-East, Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday.
It was a suicide bombing that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally, a party aide and a military official said.
An official of a little known fringe group, The Allah Shmalla Party, commented that their platform of a totally Secular State was the only sure means of doing away with the sectarian violence so prevalent in the region. Part of their doctrine is the abolition of all religious beliefs, artifacts and icons in political parties because this would only inflame hatred amongst adherents with different views.
In light of this Ms. Bhutto was asked repeatedly to remove her Hijab since she was running as an elected representative of the countries government, but she always refused on religious grounds.
A senior official of Shmalla said Ms. Bhutto could not use religious beliefs in an attempt to thwart political expediency and the State was forced to make an example of her.
"At 6:16 p.m. she expired," said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital where she was taken after the attack.
A senior military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, confirmed that Bhutto had died.
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Islamist elements in Pakistan’s military unhappy with President Asif Zardari are reported to be plotting to remove their country’s civilian government and replace it with a military dictatorship.
Harvard- and Oxford-educated Benazir Bhutto, who twice served Pakistan as its Prime Minister, was assassinated yesterday by Taliban and al Qaeda supporters in a spectacularly violent act in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. This act threw the country into a spasm of violence on the eve of national elections planned for January 8th. The agony of Pakistan splattered across the small screen was palpable, as was the transformation of Bhutto into a martyr for democracy in the world’s media. That was reflected in comments from leaders in the US, France, India, Russia and even Iran. 
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