CIA: tribal leader with al-Qaida link murdered Bhutto

AMERICAN intelligence believes former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was murdered in an operation masterminded by a tribal leader linked to al-Qaida.

Baitullah Mehsud, who also has strong ties to the Taliban, heads a network in South Waziristan, a lawless border region next to Afghanistan. He has been blamed for an organised campaign of assassinations of Pakistani officials and suicide bombings in the country.

The CIA concluded that Mehsud was behind Ms Bhutto’s assassination shortly after it occurred, according to an intelligence official.

The official, who did not wish to be named, said Mehsud, believed to be in his early 30s, is a “committed jihadist” who recruits and trains suicide operatives for the Taliban and al-Qaida.

His network carries out suicide attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, primarily along the border. The attacks have stretched from Nuristan province in north-east Afghanistan to Helmand province in the south.

He has bragged of having 3,000 would-be suicide bombers. His suicide squads have taken credit for attacks against the military and police in north-western Pakistan, as well as bombings at a hotel in the capital of Islamabad that killed a security guard, and at Islamabad international airport.

Mehsud’s men kidnapped nearly 250 Pakistani soldiers in August and held them until November, when he negotiated the release of two dozen jailed tribesmen, a group that included extremists and would-be suicide bombers.

Mehsud’s forces are believed to be behind an attack this week on a Pakistani army fort near the Afghan border that left at least 22 soldiers dead or missing. The insurgents later abandoned the fort.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has blamed Mehsud’s movement, Tehrik-e-Taliban, for 19 suicide attacks that killed more than 450 people over the past three months.