KARACHI, PAKISTAN — The government of President Pervez Musharraf says that those responsible for trying to kill former leader Benazir Bhutto in a horrific bombing last week that left nearly 140 people dead will be brought to justice. But history suggests otherwise.
Of dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks that have taken place in Pakistan over the last several years, including a number of high-profile assassination attempts, very few such cases have been definitively solved.
One notable exception: two attempts in 2003 to kill Musharraf with massive bombs near his headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The alleged mastermind was hunted down and shot to death months later by Pakistani security forces.
Analysts, along with current and former investigators and government officials, said it was highly unlikely that those who planned the attack against Bhutto in this port city as she returned home from eight years in self-imposed exile would be captured, tried and convicted.
They cited factors including imprecise investigative methods, the shifting nature of the many Islamic militant groups with the desire and motivation to kill Bhutto, the vagaries of the Pakistani judicial system and a degree of sympathy in some official quarters for the militants' cause.
"Are we going to try? Yes," said one Pakistani official who is close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Are we going to succeed? To be very honest, I have my doubts."
Both Bhutto and the government have cast suspicion on Islamists who are angered by her pro-Western stance and repelled by the idea of a woman in a leadership role. But assuming that theory is correct, narrowing down the list of suspects will be a difficult and painstaking task.
Modern forensic methods are little used in Pakistan. From the moment of the attack early Friday, the crime scene was tainted and trampled by hundreds of people, victims and rescuers alike.
Amid panic and chaos, police made little effort to cordon off the area around the blasts, which took place on the main boulevard leading from Karachi's international airport to the center of the city.
"It wasn't exactly 'CSI' -- not Miami, or Las Vegas, or even some small town," said a Western diplomat in Karachi, referring to the popular American TV crime series in which latex-gloved forensics experts examine the tiniest of clues.
