Pakistan says al Qaeda behind Bhutto killing


UPDATE: Pakistan has "intelligence intercepts" indicating that al Qaeda was behind the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

Former prime minister Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, plunging nuclear-armed Pakistan into one of the most serious crises in its 60-year history.

"We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination," ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told a news conference.

Mehsud is one of Pakistan's most wanted militant leaders and is based in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border.

Cheema also said Mehsud was behind a suicide bomb attack on Bhutto in Karachi that killed about 140 people hours after she arrived back in the country from eight years of exile on October 18.

(Via Reuters)

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