CIA places blame for Bhutto assassination: U.S. paper

0 Comments | Asian Political News, Jan 21, 2008

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 Kyodo

The CIA has concluded that members of al-Qaida and allies of Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud were responsible for last month's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the Washington Post reported Friday.

They also stand behind a new wave of violence threatening that country's stability, the agency's director, Michael Hayden, said in an interview with the Post.

Offering the most definitive public assessment by a U.S. intelligence official, Hayden said Bhutto was killed by fighters allied with Mehsud, a tribal leader in northwestern Pakistan, with support from al-Qaida's terrorist network.

That view mirrors the Pakistani government's assertions.

The same alliance between local and international terrorists poses a grave risk to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, a close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, Hayden said in the 45-minute interview.

''What you see is, I think, a change in the character of what's going on there,'' he said. ''You've got this nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between al-Qaida and various extremist and separatist groups.''

Hayden added, ''It is clear that their intention is to continue to try to do harm to the Pakistani state as it currently exists.''

Days after Bhutto's Dec. 27 assassination in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistani officials released intercepted communications between Mehsud and his supporters in which the tribal leader praised the killing and, according to the officials, appeared to take credit for it.