Did Special Service kill her?

Written By Amir Mir | Updated:

The Pakistan Peoples Party leadership has circulated an investigative report carried by The New York Sun, a well-known New York-based newspaper.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party leadership has circulated an investigative report carried by The New York Sun, a well-known New York-based newspaper, which has suspected the involvement of the Special Service Group (SSG) commandos of the Pakistan Army, the parent unit of President Musharraf, in the assassination of Bhutto.

The report forwarded to the DNA claims that "the American and the Pakistani military leaders are seeking to account for what may be renegade commando units from the Special Services Group (SSG) of the Pakistan Army in the wake of the December 27 assassination of former Bhutto".

The report states that the attack at Rawalpindi bore the hallmarks of a sophisticated military operation. According to a situation report of the incident relayed to The New York Sun by a senior American intelligence officer, states the story, Bhutto's armoured limousine was shot by multiple snipers whose armour-piercing bullets penetrated the vehicle, hitting the former premier five times in the head, chest, and neck.

Two of the snipers then detonated themselves shortly after the shooting. The report states another attack was thwarted at the local hospital where Bhutto possibly would have been revived had she survived the initial shooting.

A working theory, according to the American source, is that Al-Qaeda or affiliated jihadist groups had effectively suborned at least one unit of Pakistan's Special Services Group.

Other theories include that the assassins were trained by Al-Qaeda or were from other military services, or the possibility that the assassins were retired Pakistani special forces.