Police in 'breakthrough' on Bhutto death

Pakistani police investigating the assassination of Benazir Bhutto said today they had made a "major breakthrough".

Pakistani police investigating the assassination of Benazir Bhutto said today they had made a "major breakthrough".

They said two Islamist militants arrested last week confessed to giving her attacker a pistol and suicide vest.

Mrs Bhutto, a former prime minister, was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27th.

Police said the confessions were made by two men arrested in Rawalpindi last week, who said "they facilitated and harboured [the bomber] Saeed alias Bilal."

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The two men had links with Islamist militants, and one of their friends was killed in an army assault on the Red Mosque, a militant stronghold, in the capital Islamabad in July, a police spokesman said. More than 100 people were killed in the assault.

Pakistani and US intelligence officials suspect Baitullah Mehsud, an al-Qaeda-linked militant based on the Afghan border, was behind Mrs Bhutto's assassination.

Mrs Bhutto's aides have cast doubt over the government investigation of her assassination, however.