PAKISTAN PRESIDENT PERVEZ MUSHARRAF RESIGNS

ZeeNews

Islamabad, Aug 18: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Monday announced that he was stepping down from the post, amid tremendous pressure from the ruling coalition government to do so. “For the sake of the nation and people, I’m resigning. I don’t want anything from anybody. I’m not vindictive. Let the people be the judges. Let them do justice. I’m going with the belief that I have done everything for the nation with honesty,” Musharraf said in a live televised address to the nation. The President added that he will submit his resignation to the National Assembly in a shortwhile. Senate Chairman Mohd Mian Soomro will meanwhile take over as Acting President.

Major General who rigged Pakistan 2002 polls, spills the beans

Source-Top News

According to The Dawn, Major General Ehtesham Zamir has admitted his guilt of manipulating the 2002 elections, and has directly blamed General Musharraf for ordering him to do so.

Talking to The News, the head of the ISI's political cell in 2002, admitted manipulating the last elections at the behest of President Musharraf and termed the defeat of the King's party, the PML-Q, this time "a reaction of the unnatural dispensation (installed in 2002)."

Pictures of Bhutto Assassin seen in video

(Full Story)

The most dramatic images clearly show the hand of the assassin raised with a hand gun firing at Bhutto as she stood through the sun roof of the car leading her from a rally in Rawalpindi.

Bhutto 'blocked from hiring US bodyguards'

(Full Article-Telegraph UK)

Benazir Bhutto was so fearful for her life that she tried to hire British and American security experts to protect her, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

But the plans collapsed because President Pervez Musharraf refused to allow the foreign contractors to operate in Pakistan, according to senior aides.

"She asked to bring in trained security personnel from abroad," said Mark Siegel, her US representative. "In fact she and her husband repeatedly tried to get visas for such protection, but they were denied by the government of Pakistan."

The Blood on Musharraf's Hands

(Full Article-The Existentialist Cowboy)

Who benefits from the murder of Benazir Bhutto? Bhutto herself told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that if she were assassinated she would hold Pervez Musharraf "responsible". Certainly, the prospects for elections are dead. Pakistan will remain stuck with Musharraf and his de facto military dictatorship. Bush's ally still wields dictatorial powers. The big winners: Bush and Musharraf, for different reasons.

Last month President Bush told Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan that he must be more aggressive in hunting down al-Qaeda and the Taliban along his country's border with Afghanistan. During his recent visit to Islamabad, Vice President Cheney echoed the claim that al-Qaeda members were training in Pakistan's tribal areas and called on Musharraf to shut down their operations. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett also expressed concern recently about suspected terrorist safe havens.

Clearly, the pressure is on. Western leaders are finally beginning to recognize that Musharraf's regime has been unsuccessful in taming the Taliban, which has regrouped in the tribal areas of Pakistan while the military regime has given up trying to establish order on the Afghan border. At the same time, the regime has strategically chosen to help the United States when international criticism of the terrorists' presence becomes strident. The arrest of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a top Taliban strategist, by Pakistani authorities late last month is a case in point. The timing, right on the heels of American and British pleas for renewed toughness, is too convenient. Akhund was arrested solely to keep Western governments at bay.

--A False Choice for Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, Monday, Washington Post, March 12, 2007

Police abandoned security posts before Bhutto assassination

(Full Article-The Raw Story)

No autopsy performed on body; docs say bullet wounds not found

Police abandoned their security posts shortly before Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's assassination Thursday, according to a journalist present at the time, and unanswerable questions remain about the cause of her death, because an autopsy was never performed.

Pakistan's Interior Minister on Friday said that Bhutto was not killed by gunshots, as had been widely reported, and doctors at Rawalpindi General Hospital, where she died, say there were no bullet marks on the former prime minister's body, according to India's IBNLive.com. Furthermore, according to the news agency, there was no formal autopsy performed on Bhutto's body before she was buried Friday.

Musharraf Commission to announce that a lone nut killed Bhutto

(Full Story)

It's too tempting to point out the irony that Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter was in Islamabad last night, waiting for a dinner meeting with Benazir Bhutto that tragically never happened. If the Pakistani authorities want to make this mess go away quickly -- and clearly they do -- who would be better to consult with than the author of the "Magic Bullet" theory. But Specter's services apparently aren't even needed -- the Musharraf regime is already to announce the case is closed:

Musharraf initially blamed her death on unnamed Islamic militants, but Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told The Associated Press on Friday that "we have the evidence that al-Qaida and the Taliban were behind the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto."

He said investigators had resolved the "whole mystery" behind the opposition leader's killing and would give details at press conference later Friday.

Pakistani Paramilitary have orders to shoot on sight as violence continues

(Full Article)

While not expected to dissolve, Pakistan was roiled with unrest Friday as supporters across the country marched on banks, burned police stations and engaged in shootouts with police. The extent of the violence has paralyzed the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, triggering alarm around the world and throwing scheduled January 8 elections into disarray.

According to the UK Telegraph, "paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live rounds to stop rioters from damaging property in southern Pakistan."

"We have orders to shoot on sight," Major Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman, told the paper.

Bhutto said she'd blame Musharraf if killed

(Full Article)

(CNN) -- Two months before her death, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto sent an e-mail to her U.S. adviser and longtime friend, saying that if she were killed, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would bear some of the blame.

She cited his government's denial of her request for additional security measures after the October suicide bombing that targeted her upon returning to Pakistan from exile.

Washington Stirs a Witch's Brew In Pakistan

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This article was penned BEFORE the Bhutto Assassination

Plans by President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to attack Iran have been at least temporarily derailed by the mounting crisis in Pakistan. Not only is this important South Asia nation a key US ally in its conflict with anti-western Muslim groups (aka "the war of terror"), the US also planned to use three Pakistani air bases it now controls to launch air attacks against Iran.

I’ve been in regular contact with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She calls the situation "grim." On Friday, she was temporarily put under house arrest, preventing her from leading a mass demonstration in Islamabad. On Tuesday, she plans to lead a mass protest march from Lahore, to which she flew over the weekend, to Islamabad, mobilizing her party faithful and challenging the Musharraf regime.

Another important Pakistani party, Jamiat Islami, is also threatening mass demonstrations. Bhutto and other opposition leaders are calling on Musharraf to resign as military chief and run in fair, internationally supervised elections.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Assassinated; Pakistani Forces on Red Alert

(Full Article)

Violence erupted in several cities after Bhutto, 54, was shot in the neck and chest at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi Thursday afternoon. A homicide bomber then blew himself up, killing at least 20 others.

Bhutto's supporters erupted in anger and grief after her murder, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities. At the hospital where she died, some smashed glass and wailed, chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

The death of the charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and created fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

• Click here to view photos of the blast (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT).
• Video: Bhutto Killed in Attack

Suicide Attack Kills 48 in Pakistan Mosque

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CHARSADDA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 48 people in a mosque in northwest Pakistan on Friday where a former interior minister was offering Muslim Eid festival prayers with worshippers, the government said.

The former minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, survived unhurt but at least 80 people were wounded in the blast in Charsadda district in North West Frontier Province. Several of the wounded were in a critical condition, Interior Ministry spokesman Colonel Javed Lodhi told Reuters.