Houston Chronicle : Pakistan may never find Bhutto attackers

Pakistan may never find Bhutto attackers

By LAURA KING | Los Angeles Times | October 23, 2007

KARACHI, PAKISTAN — The government of President Pervez Musharraf insists that those responsible for trying to kill former leader Benazir Bhutto in a bombing last week that left nearly 140 people dead will be brought to justice. But history suggests otherwise.

Of dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks that have taken place in Pakistan over the past several years, including a number of high-profile assassination bids, very few such cases have been definitively solved.

One notable exception: two attempts in 2003 to kill Musharraf with bombs near his headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The alleged mastermind was hunted down and shot to death months later by Pakistani security forces.

Analysts, together with current and former investigators and government officials, said it was highly unlikely that those who planned the attack against Bhutto as she returned home from eight years in self-imposed exile would be captured, tried and convicted.

They cited imprecise investigative methods, the shifting nature of the many Islamic militant groups with the desire and motivation to kill Bhutto, the vagaries of the Pakistani judicial system and a degree of sympathy in some official quarters for the militants' cause.

"Are we going to try? Yes," said one Pakistani official who is close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Are we going to succeed? To be very honest, I have my doubts."

Bhutto and the government have cast suspicion on radical Islamists who are angered by her pro-Western stance and repelled by the idea of a woman in a leadership role. But assuming that theory is correct, narrowing the list of suspects will be difficult and painstaking.

No CSI here

Modern forensic methods are little used in Pakistan. From the moment of the attack early Friday, the crime scene was tainted and trampled by hundreds of people, victims and rescuers. Amid panic and chaos, police made little effort to cordon off the area around the blast.

"It wasn't exactly CSI — not Miami, or Las Vegas, or even some small town," said a Western diplomat in Karachi, referring to the popular U.S. crime series in which latex-gloved forensics experts minutely examine the tiniest of clues.