பெனசீர் புட்டோ கொலைக்காக 15 வயது பையன் கைது

Teen suspect arrested in Bhutto assassination
Updated Sun. Jan. 20 2008 8:11 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Security officials in Pakistan say they have arrested a teenager who confessed to being part of an assassination team sent to kill former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The 15-year-old also confessed to being involved in a plot to attack Shiite Muslims during an Ashoura festival on Sunday, a security official told the Associated Press.

The senior official from Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The teen, named Aitezaz Shah, was arrested Thursday and allegedly confessed to the plot even as police in southern Pakistan said they had foiled suicide attacks planned for the Muslim festival.

Five men -- who were in possession of explosives, detonators and a small quantity of cyanide allegedly intended for the festival attacks -- were detained, police chief Azhar Farouqi said in Karachi.

"With these arrests we have foiled major attacks," he said.

The teen apparently told investigators militant leader Baitullah Mehsud dispatched a five-person squad to Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, intelligence officials said.

Mehsud, who heads a network of armed groups, has strong ties to al Qaeda and an alliance with the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Bhutto was in Rawalpindi to campaign in the country's parliamentary elections that had been scheduled for Jan. 8. The popular leader was shot first before a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest, killing her and at least 20 other people.

In the most definitive public assessment to date, senior intelligence officials in the U.S. said yesterday that they believe Mehsud was behind the Dec.27 assassination.

In an interview with the Washington Post published on Friday, CIA Director Michael Hayden said militants allied with Mehsud and supported by al Qaeda killed Bhutto.

Pakistani officials said Shah was arrested in Dera Ismail Khan -- a town roughly 270 kilometres southwest of Islamabad -- with another militant identified as Sher Zaman.

A senior police officer in the town called Shah's confession "a sensational disclosure."

In Islamabad, Interior Ministry spokesman Jawed Iqbal Cheema said he had no information about any developments in the Bhutto case, including information about an arrest in the border area.

Maulvi Mohammed Umar, a purported spokesman for Mehsud, denied his group had any link to the boy, adding that he had not been dispatched by the tribal leader to kill Bhutto.

"It is just government propaganda," he said. "We have already clarified that we are not involved in the attack on Benazir Bhutto."

Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October after nearly eight years in self-imposed exile. On Oct. 18, she survived an attempt on her life when suicide bombers attacked her welcome-home caravan, killing at least 140 people.

Bilawal Bhutto, the opposition leader's son and successor, said earlier this month that a lack of government security led to the death of his mother.

However, President Pervez Musharraf accused Bhutto of being partly responsible for her own death by standing up through her armoured vehicle's sunroof after the political rally had ended.

With files from The Associated Press