Govt rejects Benazir call for outside help on bomb probe

CNews ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's government rejected Monday former premier Benazir Bhutto's demand for international experts to help find those behind last week's devastating suicide attack. "We reject the demand for involvement of foreign experts in the probe. Our own law enforcement agency personnel are capable of investigating the incident," Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said. "In the past also they have investigated attacks on presidents and prime ministers and the culprits were traced," Sherpao told reporters. Bhutto urged Pakistan on Sunday to enlist international help, saying countries such as the United States and Britain had the technical expertise to track down those behind the blasts. A shrapnel-packed suicide bomb ripped through a crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters who had gathered on the streets of Karachi last Thursday to cheer Bhutto's return to Pakistan only hours earlier. A grenade was also thrown shortly before the second more powerful blast, police have said. Bhutto has said she received a warning prior to her return about members of the Al-Qaeda network, Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and a Karachi-based militant group who might have been planning to attack her.