Pakistan may fear reopening Bhutto probe: Analysts

The Pakistani government may be reluctant to act on a call by a U.N. commission to investigate thoroughly the assassination of Benazir Bhutto because of fear of its own powerful security establishment, analysts said on Friday.

The killing of the former prime minister in December, 2007, was one of the most shocking events in Pakistan''s turbulent history and remains shrouded in mystery.

Conspiracy theories over Bhutto's possible killers abound, just as they do for the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy in the United States, and many people doubt whether powerful figures within Pakistan will let the truth come out.

"There is no will to really delve into all kinds of linkages which implicate people who are still in the know, who are still in the country," said Simbal Khan of the Institute of Strategic Studies.

Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi, weeks after she returned to Pakistan from years in self-imposed exile.

A report by a UN commission of inquiry released in New York on Thursday said any credible investigation should not rule out the possibility that members of Pakistan''s military and security establishment were involved.

The charismatic Bhutto spoke out forcefully against the Taliban and Islamist militant groups that had been patronised in the past by parts of Pakistan's military and she was deeply distrusted by the security establishment.

For drama and tragedy, the Bhutto family bears comparison with the Kennedys in the United States.

Bhutto's father was deposed as Pakistan's first elected leader, imprisoned and executed, while her two brothers were killed in mysterious circumstances.

Two months after Bhutto's death, her widower Asif Ali Zardari, led her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to victory in a national election in February 2008, which was to bring down the curtain on President Pervez Musharraf, the general who first came to power in a coup a decade earlier.

Musharraf was forced to resign months later and Zardari was elected president by PPP lawmakers and their allies in parliament.

Trial stopped                                          

Zardari and the PPP had called on the United Nations to investigate Bhutto's death since they did not trust the findings of an inquiry carried out during Musharraf's tenure, and stopped a trial of five Islamist militant suspects. 

The initial investigation blamed a Pakistani Taliban leader and al Qaeda ally, Baitullah Mehsud, for Bhutto's murder.

Last year, Mehsud was killed in a missile attack launched by a US drone aircraft and Musharraf went into self-imposed exile. 

The UN report said no-one believed the 15-year-old suicide bomber who killed her acted alone, and the failure to examine her death effectively appeared to be deliberate, but the commission did not say who it believed was guilty.

The UN team said its investigation had been severely hampered and it was mystified by the efforts of some high-ranking Pakistani government officials to obstruct access to military and intelligence sources. 

Although a civilian government has been in power for two years, the military and security establishment continues to exert considerable influence in Pakistan, according to analysts. 

The PPP welcomed the UN findings and said persons "named in the report for negligence or complicity in the conspiracy will be investigated".

"The blame has been fixed on the previous administration, especially for those who were responsible for her security," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political and security analyst. "Now the challenge for the government is to carry out its own investigations."

Speculation has lingered that she was the victim of a plot by allies of Musharraf, which the former president has denied.        

Bhutto wrote to Musharraf before she returned to Pakistan in October 2008 naming enemies she believed might try to kill her. On the day she returned a suicide bomber attacked her homecoming parade, killing 149 people. 

Retired Major-General Rashid Qureshi, a spokesman for Musharraf, said it was "ridiculous" to hold his government responsible and the Chilean diplomat who led the U.N. enquiry was "not Sherlock Holmes".