“We terminated the most precious American asset..."

December 29, 2017 1:31 PM

Who killed Benazir Bhutto? 10 years after the assassination of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority nation, EOS Magazine (a division of Pakistan's Dawn News) has published an investigative report into her death, concluding that she was killed by Al-Qaeda. The report appears to largely rely on a confession made by retired Pakistani special forces commando and former Al-Qaeda operative Major Haroon Ashiq. Ashiq allegedly planned the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai and is described as “one of the most influential Al Qaeda strategists and ideologues in the organisation’s history.” Via.

Additional Coverage

EOS/Dawn
* The Masterminds of the Assassination. Main feature, linked above.
* Osama vs. Benazir: A Timeline of Hate: "Osama bin Laden’s personal animosity for Benazir Bhutto stretched back two decades before her assassination. He had previously financed at least two operations to kill her and one serious attempt to topple her government."
* The Slaying of Chaudhry Zulfikar

BBC
Benazir Bhutto assassination: How Pakistan covered up killing. Owen Bennett-Jones' 10-part podcast on the subject is called "The Assassination" and Includes interviews with those accused of her murder.
The first episode is now available and subsequent installments will be released weekly each Wednesday. (Downloads do not appear to be region-restricted to UK visitors.)

posted by zarq (6 comments total)

Fantastic post. I'm looking forward to digging into it.
posted by 4ster at 1:56 PM on December 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

I seem to remember that the conclusion was that she was assassinated by internal hardliners and it was covered up rather poorly.
posted by Sphinx at 2:12 PM on December 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

For backstory Benazir as featured on the blue.
Thanks for this zarq.
posted by adamvasco at 2:30 PM on December 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

For backstory Benazir as featured on the blue.

Thanks for this. I definitely should have put that in the post.
posted by zarq at 2:34 PM on December 29, 2017

Well, called dead or alive, one of those photos of Baitullah Mehsud, sure looks like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I will look again at all images. Maybe it was just the black hat and the beard.
posted by Oyéah at 6:55 PM on December 29, 2017

Fascinating. Thanks for the post!
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 4:15 PM on December 30, 2017