CONFLICTING REPORTS ON DEATH OF BENAZIR BHUTTO

I heard on BBC Radio this morning that a close aide to the assassinated Benazir Bhutto said that Ms. Bhutto had definitely been shot. There was blood all over Bhutto's SUV and then when she was transferred to the aide's car, there was blood all over the second vehicle. The aide also said that Bhutto had a two wounds in her neck, one corresponding to a bullet's entry point and the other an exit wound.

But Musharraf's government is trying to lay blame on Al Qaeda, Carlotta Gall reports in today's The New York Times. It claims that it has intercepted a telephone conversation between two Al Qaeda members congratulating each other on the apparent success in assassinating Ms. Bhutto. Also the physician treating the injured Ms. Bhutto claims there were no gunshot wounds.

Writes Carlotta Gall:

"The government identified a militant leader with links to Al Qaeda, Baitullah Mehsud, who holds sway in tribal areas near the Afghanistan border, as the chief suspect behind the attack.

"“We have an intercept from this morning in which he congratulated his people for carrying out this act,” Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said in a briefing to reporters.

"“We have irrefutable evidence that Al Qaeda and its networks are trying to destabilize the government,” he added. “They have been systematically attacking our government, and now a political icon.” Ms. Bhutto, he said, was on the hit list of Al Qaeda and other terrorists."

But Ms. Bhutto's supporters deny anyone other than the government was responsible. See this account on BBC.com:

" . . . Ms Bhutto's associates disputed the official account, saying the government was trying to abdicate its responsibility for her security.

""To hear that Ms Bhutto fell from an impact from a bump on a sun roof is absolutely rubbish. It is dangerous nonsense, because it implies there was no assassination attempt," a spokeswoman for Ms Bhutto's PPP party, Sherry Rehman, told the BBC.

""There was a clear bullet wound at the back of the neck. It went in one direction and came out another... My entire car is coated with her blood, my clothes, everybody - so she did not concuss her head against the sun roof."

My inclination is always disbelieve governmental authorities, whether American or Pakistani. They always have political and personal motives for avoiding the truth.