Pakistani investigators reconstructed a mangled human head on Friday hoping to identify the man suspected of killing opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a suicide attack.
"We have retrieved a head and it has been reconstructed. We also found fingers and we're carrying out DNA tests to make a comparison between the head and fingers," said Saud Aziz, police chief in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
Aziz said samples had been taken from the site for testing to determine what type of explosive had been used.
While Aziz declined to speculate on who might have been behind Bhutto's murder, it bore all the hallmarks of strikes by Islamist militants fighting to destabilize the government of US ally President Pervez Musharraf.
Militants were believed responsible for at least five bomb attacks on security force personnel in recent months in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military has its headquarters, and numerous other attacks elsewhere this year.
Al Qaida was the chief suspect in the murder, standing to gain by preserving its remote stronghold, undermining Musharraf and destabilizing Pakistan, US government and private analysts said.
The militant group, which has rebuilt its command structure on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was blamed for a previous attempt on Bhutto and it has denounced her as an instrument of US policy in Pakistan.
Bush administration officials said it was too early to identify a clear suspect in Thursday's assassination.
"There are a number of extremist groups within Pakistan that could have carried out the attack ... Al Qaida has got to be one of the groups at the top of this list," a US official said.
Al Qaida's Taliban ally, which has publicly threatened Bhutto, was another potential suspect, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A private analyst said militant supporters in Pakistan's security services might have also played a role, but it was unlikely Musharraf himself was involved.
Killing Bhutto undermines Musharraf, viewed by the US as an essential ally against terrorism, by eliminating the prospect of a power-sharing agreement between the two that could shore up his deteriorating political standing and stabilize the country, the analysts said.
"Their (al Qaida's) motivation for doing this is entirely clear," said David Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "They have the most to gain."
Al Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, this month denounced Bhutto's return as a US-orchestrated maneuver.
"Everything that is going on in Pakistan, from the arrangement for the return of Benazir to the declaration of the state of emergency ... to repressive measures, is a desperate American attempt to remedy the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Zawahri said in an interview with al Qaida's media arm.
Meanwhile, India has put its border forces in "a high state of vigil" and suspended train and bus links after the assassination raised the specter of chaos in Pakistan spilling over to its nuclear-armed neighbor.
Experts said India might not suffer much short-term impact, but they said Bhutto's murder by a suspected suicide attacker could be another nail in the coffin for permanent peace in the region if militant violence holds greater sway over Pakistan.
Relations between India and Pakistan, who have been to war three times and nearly came into conflict as recently as 2002, are always fraught with tension despite a fragile peace process in the past few years.
"There has been a general advisory to all the border forces to maintain a high state of vigil. You can guess why," a Home Ministry spokesman said on Friday.
India often puts its forces on alert in response to crises in Pakistan, which also has nuclear arms. It did so in November when President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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