ISLAMABAD, 14 February 2008 — Two men arrested in connection with the murder of Benazir Bhutto confessed yesterday to helping the suicide bomber who killed the former Pakistani opposition leader, police said.

Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat made their statements before a Pakistani magistrate in Rawalpindi, where Benazir was killed on Dec. 27 outside an election rally.

The two suspects said they were at the scene of incident and provided shelter to the bomber, identified as Bilal, at a house in Rawalpindi the night before the attack, the head of the police investigation told a media briefing. “They provided a suicide jacket and a pistol to Bilal,” said Chaudhry Abdul Majid, adding that Bilal had wanted to carry out the suicide attack inside the public meeting but was unable to enter the venue.

“Bilal himself opened fire and launched the suicide attack,” Majid said.

Gul and Rafaqat were arrested in a police raid in Rawalpindi on Feb. 7, a day before British Scotland Yard police said Benazir was killed by the force of a suicide blast and not by gunfire.

The report concluded that a lone attacker fired shots at Benazir before detonating explosives. The British team of forensic and other experts spent two-and-a-half weeks in Pakistan in January at the invitation of President Pervez Musharraf.

Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party rejected the British report, insisting that she was killed by gunfire.

Zardari, Sharif Mull Alliance

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said yesterday elections would bring about a revolution in the country.

Addressing a public meeting in Chakwal, Sharif urged security personnel to refuse to obey government orders to rig the elections. Sharif said he had turned Pakistan into an invincible state by carrying out nuclear tests. He said wrong policies of the present government created law and order problem and isolated the country in the world. The PML (N) chief exuded confidence his party will win the elections and urged the people to foil all attempts to rig the polls.

Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Premier Benazir Bhutto, agreed at a meeting late Tuesday to work together after Monday’s polls.

“Both agreed to work together after the elections, regardless of which party wins a majority,” a senior PPP official, who accompanied Zardari to Sharif’s house for talks, told AFP.

PPP spokeswoman Farzana Raja said yesterday the two leaders had agreed to cooperate but that any decision on a post-election alliance “will be taken by the party’s central executive committee.”

A spokesman for Sharif’s party said there were “several issues on which both sides have agreement and there are a number of issues on which both sides can work together in a post-election scenario.”

The European Union yesterday expressed concerns about the elections, urging authorities to improve arrangements and free political detainees.

“The EU urges the authorities to take all possible steps in the remaining days to improve the conditions in which the elections are being held, including preventing local government officials from misusing state assets,” it said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan successfully test fired a short-range nuclear-capable missile yesterday as part of its efforts to boost its defense capabilities, the military said.

— With input from agencies