Pakistani police arrest suspect in Bhutto’s slaying

Authorities said they had arrested a teenager who told them he would have been the next suicide bomber sent to target former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had she survived the Dec. 27 attack.

The teen, identified as Aitzaz Shah, was arrested Friday in a mountainous region of the North-West Frontier Province and told investigators that he was not in Rawalpindi on the day Bhutto was slain.

“But he was part of the group that planned the assassination,” said one police official who asked not to be named. He said the boy was between 15 and 18.

A second suspect, Sher Zaman, identified as the boy’s handler, was also arrested as the pair drove on a rural road near the border. A search of the car revealed explosives; police said Shah had been assigned by his handler to target a religious meeting nearby, according to Pakistani media.

Police said Zaman’s arrest was a breakthrough in the Bhutto attack investigation. “He is the real catch,” an official told Dawn newspaper.

In Karachi, police arrested five militants and recovered a cache of explosives they say were to be used to attack religious commemorations.

The arrests late Friday came amid fears of more of the sectarian violence that often flares during the Ashura holiday, when Shiite Muslims mourn the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

A suicide bombing Thursday on a Shiite prayer hall in the northern city of Peshawar killed nine people, and in Iraq clashes and attacks during the holiday period left scores of people dead.

In the Karachi arrests, investigators confiscated from a rented house more than 13 pounds of explosives used in suicide vests, 4 pounds of steel ball bearings and 2 pounds of nails.

Also seized were several hand grenades, handguns, a detonator and a quantity of cyanide that investigators believe the attackers were planning to use to poison drinks at several refreshment posts along the Shiite mourners’ procession route, Police Superintendent Omar Khatab said.

The group’s leader, Mohammad Aijaz, had been conducting training courses and was a teacher at a militants camp in South Waziristan, Khatab said. His four accomplices acquired training at a terrorist camp in Pakistan’s tribal area last year, the police superintendent said.

Police believe one of the militants was planning to become a suicide bomber, and the others were accomplices.

“They planned to carry out suicide and grenade attacks on processions,” provincial police chief Azhar Ali Farooqi said at a news conference.

In the North-West Frontier Province, Shah told investigators that had Bhutto “survived in the Rawalpindi attack, he would have carried out the next suicide bombing,” the unidentified official said.

He said a five-person squad was sent by Baitullah Mahsud, a militant leader with ties to Al Qaeda and an alliance with the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan. A spokesman for Mahsud has denied any connection to Bhutto’s killing.

Shah and Zaman were arrested near Dera Ismail Khan, a town 180 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad. Three other men were also later taken into custody, police said.

President Pervez Musharraf has allowed a team of Scotland Yard investigators to assist in the investigation of Bhutto’s assassination, which many Pakistanis blame on his administration.

The arrests came at the end of a bloody week in Pakistan that saw two fatal bombings. On Monday, 12 people were killed and 40 injured in Karachi when a bomb exploded on a path crowded with food and vegetable vendors.

The device, strapped to a motorcycle left nearby, also included nails and ball bearings, police said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which authorities said was designed to cause chaos prior to the Feb. 18 parliamentary elections.

The suicide attack Thursday in Peshawar involved a teenage bomber and left 25 people injured at the crowded prayer hall.

There were also skirmishes in the mountain region near Afghanistan in which as many as 90 Islamic militants were killed Friday by government troops, with 40 more being captured Saturday.

The army had launched an operation to clear out fighters who had overrun several military outposts, scattering soldiers and forcing others to surrender. Fifteen troops were reported missing.

--

john.glionna@latimes.com

--

Special correspondent Husain reported from Karachi and Times staff writer Glionna from Islamabad. Special correspondent Zulfiqar Ali in Peshawar contributed to this report.