The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27, 2007 has created concerns for US intelligence officials, who see US policy toward Pakistan as being held hostage by President Pervez Musharraf and factions of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Mrs. Bhutto was shot when she stood up through the sunroof of her vehicle after a campaign rally for her Pakistan Peoples Party in Rawalpindi. Immediately after the shooting, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive, killing 25 people as well as himself.
The Musharraf government's initial reaction was to blame either al Qaeda or other terrorists closely linked to al Qaeda. However, contradictions in official statements, as well as the behavior of police – who hosed down the streets in Rawalpindi just an hour after Mrs. Bhutto was assassinated – quickly began to cast doubt on the official version of what happened, leaving serious questions surrounding Musharraf and the ISI and putting more pressure on the United States to pull back its support for Pakistani leadership.
While President Musharraf initially declined help from the British in investigating the assassination of Mrs. Bhutto, pressure from a distrusting public and a crumbling explanation caused a turnaround this week. An agreement was reached allowing the British to conduct their own investigation, and police from Scotland Yard arrived over the weekend.
US intelligence officials say, however, that very little evidence will be found, especially if investigators are looking for the suspected shooter. Three former US intelligence officials have told Raw Story that not only is the gunman dead, he was likely the actual target of the suicide bomber.
According to a former high ranking US intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the information, the US intelligence community understands the gunman to have been killed in the blast following Mrs. Bhutto's assassination.
"He was killed, probably not knowing that the suicide bomber was there," said this source. "We don't know for sure if the two men arrived together. We do know that the assassin died in the explosion, and was probably meant to."
Several other US intelligence officials concur that the bomber was likely "inserted" to "clean up" evidence of the shooting, including eliminating the gunman.
When asked why it was important to determine the relationship between the gunman and the suicide bomber, one former CIA officer explained that such details are the key to understanding what happened, how it happened, and who was ultimately responsible. Such details also enable investigators to document patterns and methods used, in order to determine if a terrorist attack has indeed taken place or something else has occurred.
On Thursday evening, just hours after Mrs. Bhutto was assassinated, the FBI and DHS issued a bulletin indicating that the attack had originated from the terrorist group al Qaeda and was carried out by a suicide bomber. That information, which the US acquired from Pakistani intelligence and government officials, came originally from an Italian news agency which claimed to have received a phone call from an al Qaeda representative and was never substantiated.
On Friday, the Pakistani Interior Ministry offered a slightly different version, saying the suicide bomber was associated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a terrorist group linked to al Qaeda. This initial belief that an act of terrorism was responsible for the tragedy that killed Mrs. Bhutto and 25 of her supporters caused a great deal of confusion.
Intelligence sources say that it is precisely these kinds of unsubstantiated claims that create the impression that it is "all al Qaeda, all the time," as one former official noted.
The reports that an al Qaeda suicide bomber had killed Mrs. Bhutto disappeared as quickly as they had surfaced, when footage showing a gunman and an audio capture which clearly indicated several shots fired prior to the explosion began to circulate online and in news accounts.
According to a former high ranking US intelligence official, the involvement of a gunman undercuts the official story that a terrorist attack was responsible for the murder of Mrs. Bhutto.
"Traditionally, al Qaeda coordinates multiple targets and suicide bombers," said the source during a Wednesday conversation. "While it is possible that al Qaeda was behind the assassination, it is not likely, given the operational elements."
A former CIA officer agreed that employing gunmen to assassinate targets is not the way al Qaeda generally operates, saying, "[shooting] at close range is not a traditional al Qaeda technique."
Both sources agreed that it is the general belief within the US intelligence community that the gunman was killed in the attack.
A current US official, who wishes to not be identified for this article, confirmed that the gunman died in the blast but was unable to say whether the suicide bomber was targeting the gunman as suggested by the intelligence officials. "The working assumption is that the gunman [is] dead. But it's by no means clear that the gunman was ignorant of the bomber. I can't confirm that at all."
The CIA declined to comment for this article.