ISLAMABAD, 20 January 2008 — Pakistani police have arrested a teenager who was allegedly part of a five-man squad that was tasked with killing Benazir Bhutto last month, security officials said yesterday.
The suspect, 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah, was arrested in Dera Ismail Khan on Friday while planning a suicide bombing, they said.
Shah told interrogators he had been part of a back-up team of three bombers who were tasked with killing Benazir if the original Dec. 27 attack by two men had failed, the officials added.
Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema did not confirm the arrest. “It is not in my knowledge so far,” he said.
Pakistan’s government and the CIA have blamed tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud for Benazir’s killing. Shah, originally from Karachi, went for training last year at a camp run by one of Mehsud’s commanders in Waziristan, the security officials quoted him as telling investigators.
He allegedly said the attackers in the team that killed Benazir were called Bilal and Ikramullah — the same names mentioned in an alleged telephone conversation between Mehsud and another tribal leader the day after Benazir’s death. The tape was released the day after her killing by Pakistan’s Interior Ministry.
Shah’s whereabouts at the time of the attack were not immediately clear. One security official said he was in Rawalpindi, while another said he was in Waziristan.
“The suspect was not in Rawalpindi at the time of attack on Benazir. The boy told interrogators that he was in South Waziristan,” a top police official quoted him as telling the interrogators.
