This was a known risk, announcing the rally. The last time they knew where she would be at a particular time they tried to take her out with a bomb. This time they used a bullet.
If the military had been involved there would have been an RPG attack or an IED between the rally and the hospital. That is their pattern. This attack depended on a lot of luck, because the bomb wasn’t powerful enough to take out the car. A .50 caliber sniper rifle would penetrate the armor on the Land Rover.
One of the first things you want to know when you are investigating a murder is who had a motive. Automatically blaming Musharraf doesn’t solve the crime, it prejudices the investigation.
]]>He doesn’t control nearly as much as people assume. The presidency is only one of several power centers in Pakistan and Bhutto was never as popular in Pakistan as Westerners seem to believe. There is an ethnic factor that most outsiders are not aware of in the politics of the country. She ruled as a leader of a plurality party, not a majority party. She had to form coalitions to become prime minister.
The Muslim League is normally the largest party in parliament, with the Pakistan Peoples Party second. The PPP occasionally wins enough seats to form the government. These parties are regional and have different ethnic make-up.
Things aren’t simple, and Musharraf doesn’t need them to become any more complicated which why he hasn’t been attacking the fundamentalists in the North West Frontier. He’s a thug, and would have certainly ordered her death if it suited his political purpose, but he derives no benefit and a lot of problems by this happening now.
BTW, I seriously doubt the guy waving the AK-47 in the pictures was the actual shooter. The sniper would have more probably been above her, and the guy in the crowd was the designated fallguy and distraction, as was the bomber.
]]>This was a scheduled event and the assassination took place outside of the rally. No one else in her car was injured, If she hadn’t stood up, she would still be alive, because the vehicle drove away without much damage after the blast.
Moore, the Getty photographer gives a very clear explanation of the event and his pictures bear out what he says. Her vehicle slowed in the middle of a crowd and and she stood up to wave at them. That gave the assassin the opportunity.
She shouldn’t have returned yet, but she felt she needed to.
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