Bhutto book says she had names of assassins

By Michelle Nichols

Feb 11, Reuters

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto returned home knowing the names and cell phone numbers of her possible assassins, she wrote in a book finished just days before her murder at a December election rally.

Bhutto wrote in "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West," to be released worldwide on Tuesday, that Pakistani officials told her four suicide bomber squads had been sent by Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, Osama bin Laden's son Hamza, and two militant groups to kill her.

"I had actually received from a sympathetic Muslim foreign government the names and cell numbers of designated assassins," said Bhutto, who accused Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf of not doing enough to protect her or investigate the threats.

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photo: A man walks past a poster of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, near the site where she was killed in Rawalpindi January 4, 2008. Bhutto returned home knowing the names and cell phone numbers of her possible assassins, she wrote in a book finished just days before her murder at a December election rally (REUTERS/Ahmad Masood)