Musharraf denies agencies had role in Bhutto death

By Robert Birsel

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rejected any suggestion security agencies were behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and said on Thursday she had been warned about threats from Islamist militants.

Musharraf told reporters authorities were not responsible for a security lapse that led to the killing of the opposition leader and former prime minister in a gun and suicide-bomb attack in Rawalpindi on December 27.

"In the last three months, there have been 19 suicide bombings, most of them against the military, against the intelligence," he said.

"If the same military and same intelligence is using the same people who are attacking them, it's a joke."

Musharraf said an al Qaeda-linked militant based on the Afghan border, Baitullah Mehsud, was behind most of the recent suicide bombings as well as the attack on Bhutto. Bhutto had spoken out about the need to tackle militancy.

Many Pakistanis believe other Bhutto enemies, perhaps in sections of the security agencies, were involved.

"No intelligence organization in Pakistan, I think, is capable of indoctrinating a man to blow himself up," Musharraf said.

The killing of Bhutto, an old Musharraf rival, and violence that followed has fuelled doubts about stability and the transition to democratic rule in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a crucial U.S. ally in its anti-terrorism efforts.

Opposition leaders have called for Musharraf to quit and some critics say he has become a source of instability.

INFORMED OF THREAT

Musharraf said Bhutto had ignored warnings about the danger of holding a rally at the Rawalpindi park.

"Yes, indeed, she was informed of the threat.

"We knew, the intelligence agencies knew, there was a threat and we told her not to go and stopped her from going," he said referring to an incident in November when authorities put Bhutto under house arrest briefly to stop her attending a rally at the park.

"This time again, she decided to go and she went ... She went on her own volition, ignoring the threat," he said.

Musharraf said security was very tight in the park, with more than 1,000 policemen on duty and police marksmen posted on roofs, as well as mobile squads around Bhutto.