Bhutto Herself Feared Assassination By 'Rogue Elements' in Musharraf's Regime
Bhutto herself expressed fears that "rogue elements" in Musharraf's ruling party were plotting to kill her after she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in October when a suicide bomber blew himself up just a few hundred feet from Bhutto during a triumphant homecoming parade in Karachi after she returned to Pakistan from self-imposed exile. About 150 people were killed in that attack.
It was disclosed on Friday that Bhutto sent an e-mail to an American friend shortly after the October assassination attempt that she asked to be released in the event of her murder. In the e-mail, sent to Mark Siegel, her friend and spokesman in the United States, Bhutto blamed Musharraf for failing to protect her in the volatile months leading up to Thursday's attack.
Bhutto's supporters have also accused Musharraf of deliberately withholding security. "We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment including jammers (devices to foil remote-control detonation of bombs), but they paid no heed to our requests," Bhutto's security adviser, Rehman Malik, told The AP.
The government denied Bhutto's claims.
If a Civil War Breaks Out, Who Will Control Pakistan's Nukes?
Analysts warned that any suspicion that Musharraf had a role in Bhutto's killing or knew about the plot and failed to prevent it could pitch Pakistan to the edge of a civil war. "This assassination is the most serious setback for democracy in Pakistan," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore's University of Management Sciences.
And if a civil war does break out, control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons would hang in the balance. A member of the "nuclear club" since 1998, neither Pakistan nor its arch-rival, India -- itself a nuclear-armed state since 1974 -- is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970.
That the international community is worried about Pakistan's nukes falling into the hands of extremists was underscored when Germany's foreign minister expressed his concerns in an interview published Sunday in the Hamburg weekly Bild am Sonntag.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the newspaper that there was "not yet any concrete risk" of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, but said efforts should focus on preventing that from occurring. Steinmeier joined the voices of many Western leaders concerned about Pakistan's stability.
Germany and other Western nations see next week's parliamentary elections in Pakistan as "vital" to paving the way to stability in a country plagued by the rise of Islamic militancy, the German public broadcaster Deustche Welle reported Saturday.
The security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal first came into question in 2004, when its chief nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, confessed to sharing nuclear secrets with Iran, Libya and North Korea. But some analysts say the military in Pakistan has its nuclear weapons under tight control against al-Qaida, Taliban and other militants.
U.S. Intelligence: Pakistan In Danger of Becoming Another 'Taliban State' by 2015
In early 2005, a joint security assessment by the CIA and the U.S. National Intelligence Council predicted Pakistan would become "a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and complete Talibanization" by 2015.
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