Sherry Rehman's statement is very important an a turning point in development of this issue of Benazir Bhutto's martydom. Please find the article below:


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Bhutto exhumation OK, Pakistan official says

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The Pakistani government has no problem with officials from Benazir Bhutto's political party exhuming the slain opposition leader's body if they see a need to do so, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Saturday.

Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema made the remark when asked about comments from a top Bhutto aide who helped bathe Benazir Bhutto's body after her death.

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan Peoples Party information secretary, said it was clear that the former Pakistani prime minister suffered bullet wounds to her head, contrary to a government report that she died because she hit her head on a sunroof lever.

Cheema noted that if Rehman -- as she said -- believes she saw bullet wounds that caused Bhutto's death, "We don't mind if the Peoples Party leadership wants her body to be exhumed and post-mortemed. They are most welcome, but we gave you what the facts are."

Cheema emphasized that the government's conclusion on the cause of death was based on "absolute facts, nothing but the facts."

"It was corroborated by the doctor's report; it was corroborated by the evidence of the footage we showed you."

Rehman -- who had been riding in the car behind Bhutto's when it was attacked -- called the government's conclusion that Bhutto was not shot "the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense."

"It's beginning to look like a cover-up to me," she said in a CNN interview.

Rehman said that Bhutto was hemorrhaging on the way to the hospital and that the two cars used to get her there were blood-soaked.

"There were clear bullet injuries to her head," she said. "When we bathed her, we saw that."

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Dawn TV aired still photographs, purportedly of a suspected gunman in the crowd surrounding Bhutto just before her death.

The man, who is wearing sunglasses in the photographs, is possibly holding a gun.

On Thursday, hours after Bhutto's death, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said she died from a gunshot wound to the neck, with the gunman firing as Bhutto stood through the open sunroof of her vehicle while leaving a rally in Rawalpindi. The gunman then blew himself up, killing 23 others as well, officials said.

Video of the incident shows a man shooting a handgun three times toward Bhutto's car before the blast. The account was consistent with statements to The Associated Press from doctors who pronounced Bhutto dead at a hospital.

But on Friday, the Interior Ministry said Bhutto was killed by shrapnel from the explosion. Then, hours later, the ministry said she died from a skull fracture suffered when she either fell or ducked into the car as a result of the shots or the explosion and crashed her head into a sunroof latch.

"The government comes up with the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense, and it indicates that they are abdicating themselves of all responsibility by saying that she may have knocked her head or concussed her head against one of the levers on the sunroof," Rehman said.

Dr. Mussadiq Khan of Rawalpindi General Hospital, who treated Bhutto before she was pronounced dead, said she had a large wound on the side of her head consistent with striking or being struck by "something big, with a lot of speed."

Meanwhile, a Pakistani provincial official said at least 44 people had been killed during unrest in the country's Sindh province since Bhutto was assassinated.

Akhtar Zaman, provincial interior minister, told CNN on Saturday that four of those killed were police officers. Sindh province is Bhutto's home province and a bastion of support for her Pakistan Peoples Party.

Zaman gave other figures on the violence in the southern Pakistani province. He said 900 vehicles were set ablaze, 672 of those in Karachi. Also set on fire were 37 police stations, 141 banks, and 31 gas stations. He said at least 368 people were arrested.

At the same time, Pakistan's Interior Ministry spokesman provided figures for the whole country. He said 38 people had died and 53 others were wounded.

He said 174 banks have burned and 26 banks have been destroyed,158 offices have been burned and 23 have been damaged. He said 43 gas stations have been ignited, 370 cars destroyed and 61 cars damaged.

CNN

Since religion and politics is not separate in Islam, all secularists in Muslim countries call themselves as 'Moderates'. Musharraf has named his secularism as 'Enlightened Moderation'. Benazir Bhutto's moderation was different from that of Musharraf's. America and Britain tried both of them to work together. But this strategy failed, as both had a different brand of moderation. Benazir’s moderation included democracy, freedom of press and was under the limits of Islamic Shariah. Musharraf did not bind himself with all these three concepts. He abhorred and flouted all of them.

That Benazir tried to keep her moderation within the limits of democracy and Islamic Shariah is little appreciated by her secular admirers. Her concept of democracy made her sacrifice her personal views to respect the majority views of the Pakistani masses. Hijab is a tenet of Islam and a part of Islamic culture among Muslim women. She did not wear burqah from head to foot to cover her entire body and face like most of the religious Muslim women. But, in her political career, she never wore a Western dress or skirt etc. She covered her entire body with Pakistani dress and always wore a scarf on her head. This was her moderation in respect of an Islamic tenet, hijab. She could have pursued her political career without it. Several other prominent women in Pakistan , like the late Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan, wife of the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, who spearheaded female emancipation movement in Pakistan, Begum Abida Hussain and Ms. Maliha Lodhi, both ex-ambassadors of Pakistan in USA, have never observed hijab in any form.

This small observance of a basic tenet of Islam has saved her from defamation and dishonor as well. Using computer graphic techniques, some of her opponents tried to circulate her naked photograph over the Internet but, unfortunately, they could not find a single picture of hers without a scarf over the head to put the picture of her face over the naked body of some other shameless woman. Every observer of such a false picture can easily detect that it cannot be a genuine photograph of any naked woman who has taken off all her clothes from her body but has kept her scarf intact over her head.

Moreover, this small observance of a basic tenet of Islam has inspired millions of women in Pakistan to observe hijab. Huma Yusuf writes in her article, "Coming of age in the Bhutto era" published in the International Herald Tribune of Dec. 29-30, 2007, "Until 1996, Benazir had seemed like real-life Wonder Woman, having expanded the conditions of possibility for Pakistani women for over a decade since her entry into politics. While the boys at school emulated buff cricketers, my girl friends and I would drape white scarves across our heads and try to imitate Benazir’s … The fact that Benazir happily assumed the responsibility of inspiring millions of women ..."

Bhutto's moderation has not only inspired millions of women in Pakistan in respect of hijab, but even in case of women's rights as well, her moderation was under certain limits. Some secular Westernized women in Pakistan and other Muslim countries were disappointed to find that Benazir did not transgress the limits of democracy and of the Islamic Shariah in the name of emancipation of women or for upholding the so-called women's rights.

In the same article Huma Yusuf has expressed her frustration, "She disappointed Pakistani women when she failed to repeal the draconian hudood and zina ordinances that continue to curtail the rights of Pakistani women."

This type of disappointment is confined to a few Westernized women only. These women are in a very small minority, not even 1 percent, in Pakistan or in other Muslim countries.

About her Westernization, Huma Yusuf informs about herself in the same article, " I was barely 16, learning how to flirt and sneaking cigarettes at the first dance party I was allowed to attend."

This is not a standard caricature of our daughters, sisters, and mothers in a Muslim society, nor of the millions of women in Pakistan and in other Muslim countries who learn 'how to flirt, sneak cigarettes and participate in dance parties'. It is for these types of limited few Westernized women that Benazir’s moderation has disappointed them.

The same disappointment is also expressed in another article sent from Germany, "A nation unraveling" by Mona Eltahawy of Egypt pulished in the same publication of International Herald Tribune.

She writes, "For me as a young Muslim woman, Benazir Bhutto's political career was especially captivating. She was the first woman prime minister in the Muslim world when she elected in 1988, at the age of 35. I quickly learned to separate her gender from her politics. Bhutto's record on women's rights in Pakistan was not what one would have expected.

That judicial travesty was provided by the hudood ordinances introduced in 1979 by Gen. Zia ul-Haq, a military dictator flexing his Muslim muscles by using religion against women. This is not the proper forum to discuss the merits or demerits of hudood ordinances, but these were the Islamic Laws that were enforced after years of public deliberation and dialogue with the Muslim intellectuals, reputed lawyers like AK Brohi and others, and with the consensus of religious authorities and the learned ulama of Pakistan and of the Muslim world under the pressure of Muslim majority of Pakistani citizens.

These were the laws that remained enforced in Pakistan for a period of 28 years between 1979 to 2007 without any protest from the Muslim ummah until President Musharraf repealed them using his 'military muscles' against the democratic wishes of millions of Muslims in Pakistan, against the basic concept of Pakistan's coming into existence and its separation from India and against the basic clauses of the Islamic Constitution of Pakistan to enforce his self-styled concept of 'Enlightened Moderation', as against that of Benazir Bhutto.

Whatever her personal views of moderation, she respected the democratic wishes of the people of Pakistan and confined her moderation under the democratic and Islamic limits. Despite coming into power twice, she did not try to repeal, kept intact and respected the Islamic hudood ordinances as they were promulgated and enforced. She did not bother that it had been a headache and a source of frustration and disappointment for our Westernized women.

Dr. Husain Haqqani, Director, Center for International Relations, Boston University and an ex-ambassador of Pakistan to Sri Lanka, who had also written a book about Pakistan, published from Boston University, was advisor, public relations for Benazir Bhutto when she was prime minister of Pakistan. He has sent me a mail informing about the Islamic adherence of Benazir.

He writes: As someone with a religious background who has worked with Mohtarma since 1993, I know that her core was far more Islamic than of any secular woman public figure in Pakistani history. She was very observant during Ramadan. I accompanied her and her husband on haj and she insisted on doing "everything according to the Hanafi school." Not once did I hear her abuse the ulama as "mullahs," as is fashionable among our fashionable classes.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&sect...tegory=Opinion

CIA blames extremist for Bhutto killing

WASHINGTON - The CIA has concluded that a Pakistani tribal leader's network was behind the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, according to a U.S. intelligence official.

The tribal leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is an extremist with strong ties to al-Qaida and an alliance with the Taliban. He heads up a network in South Waziristan, a lawless border region abutting Afghanistan. He has been blamed for an organized campaign of assassinations of Pakistani officials and suicide bombings in the country.

The CIA concluded that Mehsud was behind the Dec. 27 killing of Bhutto shortly after it occurred, according to an intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The Washington Post first reported the CIA's take on Friday, in an interview with CIA director Michael Hayden. "This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Hayden told the newspaper.

The intelligence official said Mehsud, believed to be in his early 30s, is a "committed jihadist" who recruits and trains suicide operatives for the Taliban and al-Qaida. His network carries out suicide attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, primarily along the border. The attacks have stretched from Nuristan province in northeast Afghanistan to Helmand province in the south.

He has bragged of having 3,000 would-be suicide bombers. His suicide squads have taken credit for attacks against the military and police in northwestern Pakistan, as well as bombings at a hotel in the capital of Islamabad that killed a security guard and at the Islamabad international airport.

Mehsud's men kidnapped nearly 250 Pakistani soldiers in August and held them until November, when he negotiated the release of two dozen jailed tribesmen, a group that included extremists and would-be suicide bombers.

Mehsud's forces also are believed to be behind an attack Wednesday on a Pakistani army fort near the Afghan border that left at least 22 soldiers dead or missing. The insurgents later abandoned the fort.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has blamed Mehsud's movement, Tehrik-e-Taliban, for 19 suicide attacks that killed more than 450 people over the last three months.

Mehsud, whose tribe of the same name is the most violent in South Waziristan province, signed a peace pact with Pakistan's army in February 2005. In it, he promised to deny shelter to foreign al-Qaida fighters in exchange for an end to military operations in the region and compensation for tribesmen killed by the military.

"It was a disaster for the U.S. The bad guys had more operational freedom," said Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism. Rogers has made more than a dozen trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the last two years.

Al-Qaida has since re-established its headquarters in the sanctuary of the tribal area, and suicide bombers and Taliban fighters are believed to cross into Afghanistan regularly to attack civilians and U.S. and Afghan forces.

Mehsud fought in the late 1990s for the Taliban against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, according to U.S. intelligence.

The Musharraf government fingered Mehsud for Bhutto's death in December, but some members of her political party and her family have questioned those assertions. There have been complaints that the government failed to provide her adequate security and vague allegations that elements within the government might have been involved in the assassination.

In December, the Pakistani government released the transcript of a purported conversation in which an al-Qaida operative reported to Mehsud that his men carried out the attack on Bhutto.

Rogers, who receives frequent intelligence briefings on Pakistan, told AP he has not seen definitive proof Mehsud's organization carried out the attack.

"We had good information that he was at least making the attempt to do it. If his folks were the first ones to do it, I haven't seen that yet. I do believe he had every intention to kill Bhutto. I don't think you can say (he did it) that definitely."

Bhutto was a secular politician popular in the U.S. and other Western countries for her opposition to hard-line Islam. Mehsud has denied involvement in her death.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080118/...ot/us_pakistan

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