Proposed external inquiry into Bhutto bombing rejected

Pakistan today rejected calls from Benazir Bhutto for outside help to investigate the suicide bomb aimed at her last week which killed 136 people.

Mrs Bhutto wants US and British experts to look into the attack last Thursday in Karachi.

But Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said today: "I would categorically reject this. We are conducting the investigation in a very objective manner."

Mrs Bhutto, who escaped the blast because she had stepped into her armoured bus minutes before the bomb went off, has called for an independent inquiry, highlighting that the chief investigator is a police officer who was present as her husband was tortured while in custody on corruption charges in 1999.

"The inquiry should be led by Pakistan, but the government should call on foreign experts so that the killers .... can be brought to justice without any doubts," she said today.

President Musharraf has promised a thorough investigation and although police are questioning three people they have yet to announce any breakthroughs.

The government has rejected Mrs Bhutto's claim that elements within the administration and security forces were trying to kill her.

She insists they are remnants of the regime of former military leader General Zia-ul Haq, who oversaw the creation of mujahedeen groups that fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Veterans of that fight later formed al-Qaida and the Taliban.

There are growing signs that President Musharraf and Mrs Bhutto are moving toward an alliance with a common mission to fight Islamic extremism, despite their long-standing dislike of each other.

That would leave former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, ousted when President Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup, to lead an opposition likely to include religious parties opposed to Pakistan's front-line role in the US-led war on terror.

Although authorities allowed Mrs Bhutto to return from self-imposed exile after agreeing to drop corruption charges against her, Mr Sharif was immediately deported when he flew into the country last month.

He served two terms as prime minister in the 1990s and remains Pakistan's most popular politician, according to a recent poll.