CIA: Al-Qaeda And The Taliban Killed Bhutto

The CIA has determined that Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by al-Qaeda and one of the groups allied with the Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban led by Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud.

This was the same group reponsible for capturing two military forts and inflicting a significant defeat on the Pakistani army earlier in the week.

CIA Director Micheal Hayden said in a WAPO interview that their intel solidly indicates that Bhutto was killed by fighters under Mehsud's orders, with logistical support from al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda and the Islamists both hated Bhutto and had threatened to murder her from the moment she returned to Pakistan. In fact, they made a serious attempt on the very date she returned.

"What you see is, I think, a change in the character of what's going on there," Hayden said. "You've got this nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between al-Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups."

"This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Hayden said. He said it was part of an organized campaign to destabilize the Musharraf government, something that's obvious to any observer of what's been going on there lately.

As I wrote yesterday, this may just be the light at the end of the tunnel where Pakistan is concerned. Pakistan is faced with an existential threat at the hands of the Islamists,with the possibility of Pakistan dissolving into a failed terrorist enclave under the rule of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Musharraf and the rest of the Pakistani establishment,even those factions opposed to him may finally decide that allowing US intervention to help destroy the terrorist factions is worth the political price.

Hayden hinted as much when he talked about Pakistan and the Musharraf government as strong partners in the War on Jihad, and said that recent events had highlighted "what are now even more clearly mutual and common interests."