Pakistan Views

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto put herself in harm’s way, Pakistan’s envoy to the United States suggested on Sunday, after President Pervez Musharraf’s admitted she may have been killed by a gunman.

“If she had not come out of the protected, armoured vehicle, maybe we would have seen her smiling face again today,” ambassador to the United States Mahmoud Ali Durrani told CNN television, asked Sunday about Musharraf’s comment for a soon-to-be broadcast interview on CBS.

But Musharraf’s comments run counter to the interior ministry’s official finding that the gunman missed his target and Benazir died from bashing her head against the car’s sunroof as she ducked for cover.

The president told CBS in the interview to be broadcast Sunday, that a gunshot could have been the cause of Benazir’s fatal injuries after all. Asked if Benazir might have been shot, he answered: “Yes, absolutely, yes. Possibility.”

Durrani insisted it was too early to make any call. “I would certainly say that the investigation is ongoing and we should not jump to conclusions. But it is a fact, also, that she was a great leader, a very charismatic leader of Pakistan, which we are very sorry we have lost her,” he said.

The ambassador would not say if he believed Al Qaeda or the Taliban were responsible for her assassination. “I will not be convinced 100 percent. The investigation is going on. We’ve called Scotland Yard.” He added: “If we prejudge everything now, why have an investigation?”

Scotland Yard anti-terrorism investigators examined Benazir’s car for evidence on Sunday, a security official said, after visiting the crime scene the day before.

The belief by intelligence organisations that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is in a remote border area is just “speculation,” envoy to the United States said. Mahmoud Ali Durrani was asked about an interview President Pervez Musharraf gave to CBS television, to be broadcast later Sunday. CNN quoted Musharraf as saying of bin Laden: “There is no proof whatsoever that he’s here. “We are not particularly looking for him, but we are operating against him and Al-Qaeda and militant Taliban and in the process obviously combined maybe we are looking for him also.”

Durrani sought to clarify saying “I think the president is suggesting that neither we, nor the US, has any intelligence where exactly Osama bin Laden is.” “He may be in Afghanistan,” the ambassador said. “He may be in the border region. If we knew where he was, we would have taken him out.”

The New York Times reported that under a proposal being discussed in Washington, CIA operatives based in Afghanistan would be able to call on direct military support for counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan. Durrani noted that US and other foreign intelligence agencies believe bin Laden to be sheltering in the tribal area along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But “that’s just speculation,” the envoy said.

“Believe me. If they knew or we knew we would have taken him out,” he said. “And when Musharraf says that he’s not specifically looking for Osama, what he really means is that we are totally focused on destroying Al-Qaeda and the Taliban network and not just one person.”