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Transcript of alleged al-Qaida intercept
By The Associated Press2 hours, 8 minutes ago
A transcript released by the Pakistani government Friday of a purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is referred to as Emir Sahib, and another man identified as a Maulvi Sahib, or Mr. Cleric. The government alleges the intercepted conversation proves al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:
Maulvi Sahib: Peace be on you.
Mehsud: Peace be on you, too.
That's telling him!
Maulvi Sahib: How are you Emir Sahib?
Mehsud: Fine.
Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations. I arrived now tonight.
Mehsud: Congratulations to you, too.
Maulvi Sahib: They were our men there.
Mehsud: Who were they?
Maulvi Sahib : There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there.
Mehsud: The three did it?
Maulvi Sahib: Ikramullah and Bilal did it.
Mehsud: Then congratulations to you again.
Even here, then, we have the multiple, or at least two, assassins theory. The point is, it was not one fanatic acting alone. I can take more more of this a indicative of anything.
Maulvi: Where are you? I want to meet with you?
Mehsud: I am in Makin. Come I am at Anwar Shah's home.
Maulvi Sahib: OK I will come.
Mehsud: Do not inform their family presently.
Maulvi Sahib: Right.
Mehsud: It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.
Again, the plural. Also, from a cultural standpoint, I would expect them to be called "men" and at lwast one a "brave Martyr."
Maulvi Sahib: Praise be to God. I will give you more details when I come.
Mehsud: I will wait for you. Congratulation once again.
Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations to you as well.
Mehsud: Any service?
Mauvliv: Thank you very much?
Mehsud: Peace be on you.
Maulvi: Same to you.
Yeah, thanks alot guys.
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Here is a general background on Bhutto from the Guardian (which I have found the most reliable source so far.
Profile: Benazir Bhutto
Moderniser, moderate, martyr
Mark Tran
Thursday December 27, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The death of Benazir Bhutto is not just a tragedy for her family but threatens to plunge Pakistan deeper into political turmoil, at a time when it was desperately seeking to regain some semblance of stability.
Already her supporters are describing Bhutto, her life cut short at 54, as a martyr, and leaders of her Pakistan People's party (PPP) will have to struggle to keep feelings of revenge in check.
For the west, Bhutto's death is just about the worst outcome, as the US and Britain had been banking on her pro-western and moderate leanings to keep Pakistan onside and help stem the rising tide of militancy in the country.
It is easy to see why the west liked Bhutto and why it put pressure on the president, Pervez Musharraf, to ally himself to the former prime minister to make the country more stable in the fight against Islamist militants.
The western-educated Bhutto had energetically made the case for democratic ideals as part of a well-orchestrated campaign to gain a third prime ministerial term at a crucial time in Pakistan's turbulent history.
For Bhutto, democracies do not go to war against each other and democratic governments do not harbour terrorists - and a democratic Pakistan, free from military dictatorship, would cease to be a haven for terrorists. The US president, George Bush, could hardly put it better himself.
Bhutto, who survived an assassination attempt when she returned from exile in October, had plenty of time to hone an image designed to appeal to the west. The first female prime minister to lead a Muslim country in modern times, Bhutto had been visiting western capitals recently, laying out her vision for Pakistan.
In doing so, she presented herself as a moderate, willing to stand up to the Islamist militants in the madrassas and to take on the pro-Taliban fighters in the lawless Afghan border areas instead of making truces.
She claimed that during her two terms as prime minister she was willing to confront the extremists and terrorists. Madrassas were reformed during her tenure, she said, and those that were too radical and violent were shut down.
There is some truth to this. As prime minister she showed more interest in human rights and the position of women in a traditional society, and she never attacked non-governmental organisations as did Nawaz Sharif, her main rival. On religious matters she had a more modern outlook, although like her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she was also willing to pander to religious groups for short-term benefit.
Despite her modernising instincts, which are shared by Musharraf, analysts point to a lack of reform when Bhutto was in charge. The same applies to Sharif.
"Neither pushed through any significant reforms," says Owen Bennett Jones in his book, Pakistan. "In national policy terms, their most important shared characteristic was their ability to run up huge levels of foreign debt."
And then there are the allegations of corruption that twice drove her from power. The supreme court ruled that Bhutto could still face prosecution on charges mostly related to alleged kickbacks in her second term as prime minister between 1993 and 1996. Bhutto said charges against her and her husband, Asif Zardari, who is widely known as Mr 10%, were politically motivated.
Initially, the Oxford- and Harvard-educated Bhutto wanted to be a diplomat. But events forced her into politics. In 1977 her father, Pakistan's first democratically elected leader after the civil war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, was deposed as prime minister in a military coup led by General Zia ul-Haq. Imprisoned and charged with murder, he was executed two years later.
She was imprisoned just before her father's death. During stints out of prison for medical treatment, she set up a PPP office in London, and led a campaign against Zia. After the general died in an air crash, Bhutto won the election.
Not everyone associated with the still popular PPP has been comfortable with her recent cosying up to Musharraf. Former party members and estranged family have accused her of betraying her father's legacy. Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, Benazir's great-uncle and head of the Bhutto clan, has gone so far as to say that she has disgraced the Bhutto name.
It seems a somewhat harsh assessment, especially now given the circumstances of her death.
A tragedy born of military despotism and anarchy
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto heaps despair upon Pakistan. Now her party must be democratically rebuilt
Tariq Ali
Friday December 28, 2007
The Guardian
Even those of us sharply critical of Benazir Bhutto's behaviour and policies - both while she was in office and more recently - are stunned and angered by her death. Indignation and fear stalk the country once again.
An odd coexistence of military despotism and anarchy created the conditions leading to her assassination in Rawalpindi yesterday. In the past, military rule was designed to preserve order - and did so for a few years. No longer. Today it creates disorder and promotes lawlessness. How else can one explain the sacking of the chief justice and eight other judges of the country's supreme court for attempting to hold the government's intelligence agencies and the police accountable to courts of law? Their replacements lack the backbone to do anything, let alone conduct a proper inquest into the misdeeds of the agencies to uncover the truth behind the carefully organised killing of a major political leader.
How can Pakistan today be anything but a conflagration of despair? It is assumed that the killers were jihadi fanatics. This may well be true, but were they acting on their own?
Benazir, according to those close to her, had been tempted to boycott the fake elections, but she lacked the political courage to defy Washington. She had plenty of physical courage, and refused to be cowed by threats from local opponents. She had been addressing an election rally in Liaquat Bagh. This is a popular space named after the country's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was killed by an assassin in 1953. The killer, Said Akbar, was immediately shot dead on the orders of a police officer involved in the plot. Not far from here, there once stood a colonial structure where nationalists were imprisoned. This was Rawalpindi jail. It was here that Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in April 1979. The military tyrant responsible for his judicial murder made sure the site of the tragedy was destroyed as well.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's death poisoned relations between his Pakistan People's party and the army. Party activists, particularly in the province of Sind, were brutally tortured, humiliated and, sometimes, disappeared or killed.
Pakistan's turbulent history, a result of continuous military rule and unpopular global alliances, confronts the ruling elite now with serious choices. They appear to have no positive aims. The overwhelming majority of the country disapproves of the government's foreign policy. They are angered by its lack of a serious domestic policy except for further enriching a callous and greedy elite that includes a swollen, parasitic military. Now they watch helplessly as politicians are shot dead in front of them.
Benazir had survived the bomb blast yesterday but was felled by bullets fired at her car. The assassins, mindful of their failure in Karachi a month ago, had taken out a double insurance this time. They wanted her dead. It is impossible for even a rigged election to take place now. It will have to be postponed, and the military high command is no doubt contemplating another dose of army rule if the situation gets worse, which could easily happen.
What has happened is a multilayered tragedy. It's a tragedy for a country on a road to more disasters. Torrents and foaming cataracts lie ahead. And it is a personal tragedy. The house of Bhutto has lost another member. Father, two sons and now a daughter have all died unnatural deaths.
I first met Benazir at her father's house in Karachi when she was a fun-loving teenager, and later at Oxford. She was not a natural politician and had always wanted to be a diplomat, but history and personal tragedy pushed in the other direction. Her father's death transformed her. She had become a new person, determined to take on the military dictator of that time. She had moved to a tiny flat in London, where we would endlessly discuss the future of the country. She would agree that land reforms, mass education programmes, a health service and an independent foreign policy were positive constructive aims and crucial if the country was to be saved from the vultures in and out of uniform. Her constituency was the poor, and she was proud of the fact.
She changed again after becoming prime minister. In the early days, we would argue and in response to my numerous complaints - all she would say was that the world had changed. She couldn't be on the "wrong side" of history. And so, like many others, she made her peace with Washington. It was this that finally led to the deal with Musharraf and her return home after more than a decade in exile. On a number of occasions she told me that she did not fear death. It was one of the dangers of playing politics in Pakistan.
It is difficult to imagine any good coming out of this tragedy, but there is one possibility. Pakistan desperately needs a political party that can speak for the social needs of a bulk of the people. The People's party founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was built by the activists of the only popular mass movement the country has known: students, peasants and workers who fought for three months in 1968-69 to topple the country's first military dictator. They saw it as their party, and that feeling persists in some parts of the country to this day, despite everything.
Benazir's horrific death should give her colleagues pause for reflection. To be dependent on a person or a family may be necessary at certain times, but it is a structural weakness, not a strength for a political organisation. The People's party needs to be refounded as a modern and democratic organisation, open to honest debate and discussion, defending social and human rights, uniting the many disparate groups and individuals in Pakistan desperate for any halfway decent alternative, and coming forward with concrete proposals to stabilise occupied and war-torn Afghanistan. This can and should be done. The Bhutto family should not be asked for any more sacrifices.
· Tariq Ali's book The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power is published in 2008 tariq.ali3@btinternet.com
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