Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, has said she might allow a US military strike inside Pakistan to eliminate Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, if she were the country's leader. "I would hope that I would be able to take Osama bin Laden myself without depending on the Americans," she said on Monday in an interview with BBC World News America. "But if I couldn't do it, of course we are fighting this war together and [I] would seek their co-operation in eliminating him." Bhutto, who has vowed to return to Pakistan on October 18 after eight years of exile, was speaking less than a week before an October 6 election that Pervez Musharraf, the current president, is expected to win despite his slumping popularity. She has been in talks with Musharraf about a post-election power-sharing deal that would shore up his position, which has become more precarious amid violent clashes with Muslim fighters and demonstrations against his re-election bid.
In a new audio message issued less than two weeks ago, bin Laden called on Muslims in Pakistan to wage fight Musharraf's government and his armed forces. A string of deadly attacks has left scores of security personnel dead since government troops stormed the al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July. US intelligence officials believe bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders are being protected by tribal leaders in an area of northwestern Pakistan near the Afghanistan border that is largely inaccessible even to Pakistani forces.