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US mulls covert Pak operation

Hillary for US-UK watch on Pak nukes; Musharraf says Benazir bears sole blame for deadly attack

AFP, Washington
The US administration is considering granting the Pentagon and CIA new authority to conduct covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan where al-Qaeda is showing new strength. The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday.
US White House hopeful Hillary Clinton on the other hand said she would propose a joint US-British team to oversee the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if she is elected president.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf meanwhile told US television that slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto alone bears the blame for the attack that killed her and many of her supporters last month, and rejected government culpability.
Citing unnamed senior officials of Bush administration, The NY Times said the plan calls for giving Central Intelligence Agency agents broader powers to strike selected targets inside Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided
by Pakistani sources.
Up to now, most counterterrorism operations in Pakistan have been conducted by CIA operatives based in Afghanistan, the report said.
If the plan is given final approval, the US spy agency would continue to do the same, but would be able to call for help from the US military or deputise some special operations forces of to act under the authority of the agency, according to the paper.
The Pakistani military reacted
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angrily yesterday to reports that US President George W Bush is considering covert military operations in the country's volatile tribal areas borderingAfghanistan.
"It is not up to the US administration, it is Pakistan's government who is responsible for this country," chief military spokesman Major GeneralWaheed Arshad told AFP
"There are no overt or covert US operations inside Pakistan. Such reports are baseless and we reject
During a Democratic debate Hillary Clinton said she would propose a joint US-British team to oversee the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if she is elected president.
"So far as we know right now, the nuclear technology is considered secure, but there isn’t any guarantee, especially given the political turmoil going on inside Pakistan," she said.
If elected president, the US senator said, "I would try to get (Pakistan Prcisdent Pervez) Musharraf to share the security responsibility of the nuclear weapons with a delegation from the United States and, perhaps. Great Britain, so that there is some failsafe."
The four Democratic candidates — Clinton, Senator Barack Obama. Governor Bill Richardson and former senator John Edwards -- were scathing about President George W. Bush's policy towards Pakistan.
MUSHARRAFTALKS TOUSTELEV1SION Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told US television Saturday that slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto alone bears the blame for the attack that killed her and many of her supporters last month, and rejected government culpability.
For standing up outside die car. I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers," he told CBS television in a broadcast Sunday, in a partial transcript of the interview.
The party of murdered Pakistani opposiuon leader Benazir Bhutto said Sunday that President Pervez Musharrafs admission she may
have been killed by a gunman underscored the need for a UN probe.
Benazir. Musharrafs chief political rival and leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PNP), was murdered as she left a campaign rally on December 27 ahead of elections which were to have been held this month.
She was killed in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi while standing in a moving car with her head through the roof hatch.
Pakistan's interior ministry has said Benazir died from a head injury sustained when a suicide bomber blew himself up near her car, saying the force of the blast caused her to hit her head on the car's roof hatch.
But party aides who were with her at the time of the attack say she died from a gunshot to the head. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, refused to allow an autopsy before she was buried.
Weighing in on the controversy Saturday. Musharraf told the CBS programme "60 Minutes" that a gunshot could, in fact, have been the cause of Benazir's fatal injuries.
Asked if Benazir might have been shot, Musharraf answered: ’Yes, absolutely, yes.’
He added that his government did everything possible to protect Benazir, in the face of death threats she had received.
"You haw to remember She had the threat. So she was given more security than any other person,’ the Pakistan president said.
Her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has insisted ever since that she was shot -- a new apparently backed up by video footage.
Musharrafs comments, however, contradict the interior ministry's official finding that Benazir died from a head wound sustained in the act of ducking for cover.
His comments came as British anti-terrorism police on Saturday started examining evidence in Benazir's assassination, after being asked by Musharraf to assist in the investigation.
Meanwhile the national elec tions which were to have been held on January 8, now have been pushed back until February 18.