Officials: Security advice ignored

U.S. officials said they provided Bhutto aides with intelligence on assassination threats.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States provided a steady stream of intelligence to Benazir Bhutto about threats against her before the former Pakistani prime minister was assassinated and advised her aides on how to boost security, although key suggestions appear to have gone unheeded, U.S. officials said Monday.

Senior U.S. diplomats had multiple conversations, including at least two private face-to-face meetings, with top members of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party to discuss threats on the Pakistani opposition leader’s life and review her security arrangements after a suicide bombing marred her initial return to Pakistan from exile in October, the officials told The Associated Press.

The intelligence was also shared with the Pakistani government, the officials said.

Much of what was passed on dealt with general threats from Taliban extremists and al-Qaida sympathizers and “was not actionable information.”

The officials said Bhutto and her aides were concerned, particularly after the October attack, but were adamant that in the absence of a specific and credible threat there would be few, if any, changes to her campaign schedule ahead of parliamentary elections.

“She knew people were trying to assassinate her,” said an intelligence official. “We don’t hold information back on possible attacks on foreign leaders and foreign countries.” The official added, however, that while the U.S. could share the information, “it’s up to [the recipient] how they want to take action.”

“We gave them a steady stream of intelligence,” one official said.

The officials spoke to AP on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter and amid widespread disbelief over the Pakistani government’s assertion that Bhutto died not from bullet or shrapnel wounds but from injuries suffered while hitting her head on her vehicle’s sunroof during Thursday’s attack by a suicide bomber and gunman.

The dispute over the government’s explanation of how she died intensified after a medical report didn’t state what had caused her injuries and a video obtained by Britain’s Channel 4 television showed a man firing a pistol at Bhutto from just feet away as she poked her head out of the sunroof.