World | Pakistan
Government denied visas for foreign security agents
Reports indicate aides had broached deals with US-based Blackwater and a London-based group.
- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2007
- Published: 00:28 December 31, 2007
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New York: Benazir Bhutto was so fearful for her life that she tried to hire British and American security experts to protect her.
But the plans collapsed because President Pervez Musharraf refused to allow the foreign contractors to operate in Pakistan, according to senior aides.
"She asked to bring in trained security personnel from abroad," said Mark Siegel, her US representative. "In fact she and her husband repeatedly tried to get visas for such protection, but they were denied by the government of Pakistan."
Her entourage discussed deals with the American Blackwater operation, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
Sources within the British private security industry said she also had negotiations with the London-based firm Armor Group, which guards UK diplomats in the Middle East - the company, however, denied knowledge of any such talks.
A Blackwater spokeswoman confirmed the negotiations. "We were approached to provide prime minister Bhutto's security, but an agreement was unfortunately never reached," she said. She declined to go into the precise details.
Bhutto frantically contacted officials, diplomats and friends in America, Europe and the Gulf to urge President Pervez Musharraf to improve her security in the wake of the murderous suicide bomb attacks that killed more than 140 during her homecoming parade on October 19.
Unusual step
Indeed, US diplomats took the highly unusual step of providing her directly with confidential US intelligence about militant threats to her life. Pakistan's interior ministry also passed on details of plots against her and aides said letters containing death threats had been smuggled into her home.
Hussain Haqqani, a US-based Bhutto advisor, confirmed that she had sought to employ private international security contractors but said the Musharraf regime would not approve the plan.
He added that America, which has arranged for private contractors to guard Afghan President Hamid Karzai and top leaders in Iraq, was reluctant to pressurise Musharraf to change his mind. This was despite Washington seeing Bhutto as a lynchpin in its crucial diplomatic bid to encourage Pakistan to return to democracy.
Siegel's comments will add to the long-running controversy over Bhutto's security detail, which were widely regarded as woefully inadequate.
She relied largely on using a "human shield" of loyal followers who would form a ring around her, but it eventually was shredded to bits by a determined assailant.
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