ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani police probing the assassination of Benazir Bhutto said on Wednesday they had made a "major breakthrough" when two Islamist militants arrested last week confessed to giving her attacker a pistol and suicide vest.
"They have confessed that they gave a suicide jacket and apistol to the bomber," Deputy Inspector General Chaudhry AbdulMajeed told reporters. "It's a major breakthrough. Theirconfession is a major piece of evidence in the case," he said.
Bhutto, a former prime minister, was killed in a gun andsuicide bomb attack after an election rally in the city ofRawalpindi on December 27.
Majeed, who is heading the investigation, said theconfessions were made by two men arrested in Rawalpindi lastweek and identified as Hasnain Gul and Rifaqat.
He said they had confessed during interrogation that "theyfacilitated and harboured (the bomber) Saeed alias Bilal."
Gul and Rifaqat had links with Islamist militants and oneof their close friends was killed in an army assault on the RedMosque, a militant stronghold, in the capital Islamabad inJuly, he said. More than 100 people were killed in the assault.
Majeed said the police were still investigating possiblelinks between the militants and Baitullah Mehsud, an alQaeda-linked militant based in the tribal region on the Afghanborder.
Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials suspect Mehsudwas behind Bhutto's assassination.
Bhutto's aides have cast doubt over the governmentinvestigation of the assassination of the two-time primeminister.
Controversy also rages over whether Bhutto was killed by abullet or by a concussive head injury caused by the detonationof the bomb after the assassin had fired at her.
A recent poll conducted by Gallup Pakistan found thatalmost half of all Pakistanis believe government agencies orpoliticians allied to President Pervez Musharraf were involvedin the assassination.
A British police team that the government invited toinvestigate said in its report last week that Bhutto was killedwhen the blast slammed her head against armour plating around aroof hatch in her vehicle, which she had stood through to waveto supporters.
Aides insist Bhutto was shot before the blast, and want aUnited Nations probe to find her killer -- a demand thegovernment has rejected.
A general election originally called by Musharraf forJanuary 8 was put off until February 18 after Bhutto'sassassination.
Campaigning has been marred by persistent violence,including a roadside bomb blast on Wednesday in thenorthwestern Swat valley which killed two people and woundedthree in an election campaign convoy.
(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider, editing by Tim Pearce)
