Taliban commander Mehsud Planned Assassination

Pakistani police are claiming that Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud planned and financed Benazir Bhutto's assassination. Apparently Baitullah has a few more IQ points than his dead brother Abdullah Mehsud...

Islamabad (PTI): The head of the Pakistani police team probing former premier Benazir Bhutto's assassination on Monday accused Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud of planning and financing her killing.

"We have arrested five people in connection with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and they have told us that Baitullah Mehsud approved the plan to kill her," said Additional Inspector General of Police Chaudhry Abdul Majeed.

Majeed said Bilal, the suicide bomber who killed Bhutto after an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, had met Mehsud some weeks before the attack.

He also said Mehsud, the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan based in South Waziristan, had given Rs 400,000 to a cleric named Qari Ismail, who sent five militants to Rawalpindi to kill Bhutto. The militants planned to target Bhutto in various cities until they finally succeeded in killing her, he said.

Majeed said that the inquiry had been completed as five suspects arrested by police had confessed to their involvement in the crime.

The five suspects were identified as 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah, Sher Zaman, Hasnain Gul, Rafaqat and Abdul Rashid. Shah and Zaman were arrested in Dera Ismail Khan while Gul and Rafaqat were nabbed in Rawalpindi.

Majeed said police were still looking for Bilal's accomplice Ikramullah.