Pakistan military pounds 'Bhutto assassin stronghold'

The Pakistani military has pounded an extremist stronghold near the Afghan border where a rebel leader blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is believed to be hiding, officials said.

The strikes came a day after authorities said they had arrested a 15-year-old boy alleged to have been involved in the December 27 assassination of Ms Bhutto.

The central government has never had much control over South Waziristan, a tribal area where several top militants are believed to live. They included Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani accused by the government and the CIA of masterminding the killing of Ms Bhutto.

Officials said the boy had confessed to taking part in a plot to kill Ms Bhutto in a gun and suicide bomb attack in the garrison town of Rawalpindi.

His role in the mission to kill Ms Bhutto was as a back-up in case the gunman or the suicide attacker failed, according to an intelligence official who has seen his interrogation records.

The boy said the murder was organised by Mehsud, who has previously denied any involvement in the attack.

Authorities say the boy received terrorist training in neighbouring Afghanistan before taking part in the mission. He told interrogators he trained for 40 days in a camp run by Mehsud in the Kotai area of South Waziristan before going to Helmand province in Afghanistan last year for another 40 days of “practical training”.

Meanwhile, Sunni extremists fired small arms and mortars at a Shiite procession commemorating Ashoura, a Shiite Muslim holiday that is often scarred by sectarian violence, the military said in a statement.

Nine civilians and three security troops were injured in the incident in northwestern Hangu town, which ended after troops fired tear gas from a helicopter, it said.

Two civilians were killed and five others wounded in the attacks near the border close to the towns of Lhada and Makin in South Waziristan, said Fazal Subhan, a Makin resident. However, military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said there were no reports of casualties in the operations.

Fighting in South Waziristan in recent days has killed more than 100 soldiers and militants.

Elsewhere, suspected militants in southwestern Pakistan blew up three lorries carrying supplies for coalition forces in Afghanistan, police said today.

Nobody was hurt in the overnight blasts in the town of Chaman, but two fuel tankers and a rig carrying a shipping container were completely destroyed, local police said.