Report: Day after Bhutto assassination, US Predator targeted Islamist ideologue

[Measured Justice]

Report: Day after Bhutto assassination, US Predator targeted Islamist ideologue
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Report_Day_after_Bhutto_assassination_US_0101.html
Muriel Kane Published: Tuesday January 1, 2008





In the wake of last week's assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times is laying responsibility for the killing on a new and more radical splinter group of al-Qaeda.  According to journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, the United States retaliated against the head of that faction immediately following the attack on Bhutto:

"This nest of takfiris and their intrigues was on the radar of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the day after Bhutto's killing Sheikh Essa was targeted by CIA Predator drones in his home in North Waziristan. According to Asia Times Online contacts, he survived, but was seriously wounded. Sheikh Essa had only recently recovered from a stroke which had left him bedridden."

There have been no other press reports of such an attack and no US claims of responsibility. However, the US never does acknowledge participating in events of this sort. For example, in October 2006, a religious school on the Afghan-Pakistan border was destroyed in an airstrike, killing 80 suspected militants and leading to angry protests. Mulitiple reports indicated the school had been hit by a US Predator drone, but a Pakistani army spokesman denied any direct US involvement. Shazad's belief that Bhutto was assassinated as part of an al-Qaeda operation to prevent the emergence of a more liberal and secular Pakistan has been promoted by the Pakistani leadership but does not appear to be widely shared. Most current speculation is focused on suspicions of complicity by elements within President Musharraf's government.

However, Shazad's discussion of Sheikh Essa, his radical takfiri followers, and his growing influence in the Pakistani border region of Waziristan may still shed light on the current turmoil in that country. The Egyptian-born Sheikh Essa -- originally known as Abu Amro Abdul Hakeem -- teaches that all non-practicing Muslims are anti-God, so that jihadis are justified in taking arms not merely against foreign troops but also against secular Muslim governments. He is particularly influential in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, with his claims that the leaders of those two countries, as well as Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, should be targeted for elimination. According to Shazad, the split between the takfiris and more traditional jihadis explains much of what has happened across the Middle East over the last several years, as outside radicals come into conflict with local resistance movements like the insurgents in Iraq or the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Shazad writes, "Many of the foreign volunteers who have flooded into Pakistan and Iraq since 2003 are Takfirists, who regard 'bad Muslims' as the real enemy. Indigenous Islamic resistance groups have reacted uncomfortably to the growth of this near-heresy within al-Qaida which, by waging war against Muslim governments, has brought chaos to the populations it claims to defend." Sheikh Essa has gained many adherents in North Waziristan, including former members of other jihadi outfits. One warlord in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, recently advanced the goal of denying legitimacy to Pakistan's national government by declaring "Islamic Emirates" in the region and pressing for a boycott of Pakistan's upcoming national elections. The Pakistani Interior Ministry has even claimed that Mehsud was behind the attack on Bhutto, but he has denied it.
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Even more frightening: http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Military_use_of_unmanned_aircraft_s_01012008

[Volitzer]

She got taken out because she refused to go along with the NWO's plans.

She was a serious threat to a police-state Pakistan so out she went.  Now they can justify all the police state behavior which benefits the NWO.

[MinisterofInfo]

Read this:


Sources: Bhutto was to give U.S. lawmakers vote-rigging report
Story Highlights
Hours before assassination, Bhutto was to meet with two U.S. lawmakers
Report accuses Pakistani government of planning to rig upcoming election
Report alleges government plan to misuse American-made voting equipment [They planned on misusing the US fraud machines?]
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/01/pakistan.voterigging/
updated 14 minutes ago

 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- On the day she died, Benazir Bhutto planned to hand over to visiting U.S. lawmakers a report accusing Pakistan's intelligence services of a plot to rig parliamentary elections, sources close to the slain former Pakistani prime minister told CNN Tuesday. Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Rep. Arlen Specter were scheduled to meet with Bhutto on the day she died. Bhutto was assassinated Thursday, hours before a scheduled meeting with Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-Rhode Island, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania. A top Bhutto aide who helped write the report showed a copy to CNN. "Where an opposing candidate is strong in an area, they [supporters of President Pervez Musharraf ] have planned to create a conflict at the polling station, even killing people if necessary, to stop polls at least three to four hours," the document says.

The report also accused the government of planning to tamper with ballots and voter lists, intimidate opposition candidates and misuse U.S.-made equipment to monitor communications of opponents. "Ninety percent of the equipment that the USA gave the government of Pakistan to fight terrorism is being used to monitor and to keep a check on their political opponents," the report says.  The Pakistani government denied the allegations, with two Pakistani diplomatic sources calling the report "baseless." Rashid Qureshi, a spokesman for Musharraf, called the accusations "ridiculous" and said the election will be "free, fair and transparent." "I think they are just a pack of lies," he said. One Bhutto source said the document was compiled at her request and said the information came from sources inside the police and intelligence services. The election had been scheduled for January 8, but in the wake of Bhutto's assassination, the Election Commission is expected to announce Wednesday that it will delay the vote at least four weeks into February, sources at the commission said. Sen. Latif Khosa, who helped put the report together, accused the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence of operating a rigging cell from a safe house in the capital, Islamabad. The goal, he said, is to change voting results electronically on election day.

"The ISI has set up a mega-computer system where they can hack any computer in Pakistan and connect with the Election Commission," he said. Media outlets in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have run reports alleging that retired Brig. Gen. Ejaz Shah -- formerly an Inter-Services Intelligence officer and now head of the civilian Intelligence Bureau -- is involved in the vote rigging plans. Shah's name also turned up in a letter Bhutto wrote to Musharraf after the first attempt on her life on October 18, when she returned to Pakistan after eight years in exile, Pakistani media reported. In the letter, the media reported, Shah was one of four Pakistani officials Bhutto named as people who wanted her dead. The Pakistan government has denied those allegations as well. Khosa said he could make no link between Bhutto's assassination and the report. Some terrorism experts also said there was no reason to believe Bhutto was killed because of the report, agreeing with Pakistani government contentions that al Qaeda was responsible for her death. E-mail to a friend 
 

[MinisterofInfo]

Bhutto planned to expose poll plot
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22996636-601,00.html
Bruce Loudon, Islamabad | January 02, 2008

CLAIMS that on the day she was murdered Benazir Bhutto planned to reveal details of a conspiracy by intelligence agencies to rig Pakistan's looming election have drawn the country's powerful spy service into the escalating speculation surrounding her death. Officials in her Pakistan People's Party said yesterday that Bhutto was due to meet two senior American politicians last Thursday to show them a "very sensitive" report alleging the Inter-Services Intelligence agency was using US money to rig the election. The aim of the operation, allegedly run from a safe house in the capital, Islamabad, was to undermine the PPP to ensure victory for the Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid) party, which supports President Pervez Musharraf, in the election that had been scheduled for next Tuesday. Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the PPP's election monitoring unit, said that Bhutto had planned to hand over the report to Patrick Kennedy, a Democratic congressman for Rhode Island, and Arlen Specter, a Republican member of the Senate sub-committee on foreign operations. She planned to hold a press conference after the meeting. The two US politicians confirmed they were intending to have dinner with Bhutto on Thursday evening, but they were not available for comment yesterday.

Mr Kennedy, 40, is the nephew of assassinated US president John F. Kennedy and assassinated US senator Robert F. Kennedy. Mr Specter, while working for the Warren Commission into John F. Kennedy's 1963 death, developed the controversial "single bullet theory" to explain how a lone assassin may have killed the president. Conspiracy theories continue to swirl around the assassination of Bhutto, who died on Thursday after being shot during a rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. Her motorcade was also the target of a suicide bomber, who blew himself up shortly after she was hit by the gunman's bullets. In a major backflip, Pakistan's interim Government yesterday retreated from what is being described as a "blunder" over assertions that Bhutto was killed not by bullets fired by the assassin but by a bump on the head that caused brain damage. At a briefing with leading Pakistani newspaper editors last night, Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro apologised for what was described as the "highly provocative" and widely criticised claim from top government spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema that Bhutto died when she hit her head against the sunroof of the armoured Toyota Land Cruiser in which she was travelling. Claims of a conspiracy to rig the election came as the country's Election Commission nervously put off an expected announcement of a postponed election date. The Election Commission had been expected to announce a new date on Monday, before deferring it until yesterday.

Election commission secretary Kanwar Dilshad said the poll date would be announced today, allowing more time to consult political parties. "It looks impossible to hold elections on January 8. The elections can be delayed," Mr Dilshad said. If the election were postponed, it would be held no later than February, an official told news agency AFP. Also today, President Musharraf will address the nation. But it appears that only the Musharraf-supporting PML(Q) wants a postponement of the poll. Opposition parties maintain the only reason for a delay would be to allow the beleaguered PML(Q) time to recover and regroup after polling that shows it to be heading for defeat. They have threatened mass rallies in the event of a postponement. Many Pakistanis say "the agencies" -- the all-powerful intelligence services -- had a hand in Bhutto's assassination, directly or indirectly. The agencies deny the claim. But last night, Bhutto's husband and newly appointed PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, asked whether the confidential report on alleged election rigging could have been a motive for killing her, said: "It was a general combination of all these things." No comment was available from the always secretive ISI, but an official was quoted as dismissing the allegations as "a lot of talk and not much substance".  PPP official Mr Lashari said the report Bhutto was to hand over was 200 pages and detailed the ISI plans to rig the election.

[MinisterofInfo]

Sound familiar?

Once she began to "talk," the Bush Administration, along with Musharaff saw fit to silence her because the trail ultimately leads back to themselves.

[MinisterofInfo]

Bhutto was planning to expose vote rigging plans: Aides
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080037450&ch=1/1/2008%208:19:00%20PM
Tuesday, January 1, 2008 (Islamabad)



On the day she was assassinated, former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto was scheduled to meet two senior US lawmakers to hand over a dossier accusing the ISI and Election Commission officials of rigging the upcoming parliamentary polls, her party officials said here on Tuesday. Faratullah Babar, a spokesman of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), said she was planning to hand over the dossier to Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Patrick Kennedy, a member of US House of Representatives from Rhode Island, on the evening of December 27, the day she was murdered. ''Yes, she was supposed to hand over the dossier to the two lawmakers she was going to meet over dinner,'' he told PTI. Babar, a close aide of Bhutto, said the dossier, which he helped prepare, contained the details about how the Musharraf regime was ''planning to rig'' the general election, scheduled for January 8. When asked was their any involvement of the spy agencies in the alleged rigging plans, he said ''yes''. However, he did not give details. Latif Khosa, another trusted aide of Bhutto, also claimed that he prepared the 160-page document that Bhutto was supposed to hand over to the US lawmakers.

Fake ballots
Khosa alleged that ISI and Election Commission officials were involved in the plans to rig the polls, adding the dossier contained details about ''fake ballots'' and ''intimidation'' of PPP candidates. He claimed that more than 100 candidates of PML-Q, the party, which backs President Pervez Musharraf, were going to get 25,000 ''pre-stamped'' ballot papers, apparently in Punjab and the places where the polls could be close. He alleged that the spy agencies were planning to use a super computer to hack into the Election Commission's computers. Khosa also claimed that Election Commission officials had left out a large number of voters' names from the list of the people eligible to cast their ballot. Earlier Senior PPP official Sarfraz Ali Lashari told The Times daily of London that the dossier contained information that ISI was allegedly using some of the $10 billion of American aid to run a covert election operation from a safe house in a central district of Islamabad. According to the official, who works in PPP's election monitoring cell, the operation's aim was to undermine Bhutto's party and ensure victory for PML-Q.