PAKISTAN:The man named by Pakistani officials as the mastermind behind Benazir Bhutto's assassination is rarely photographed or filmed.
In the few images that exist of Baitullah Mehsud, his face is obscured with a scarf. One picture shows him wrapped completely in a shawl with only his eyes visible; in another the sole distinguishing feature is a mane of hair that hangs almost half way down his back.
In a televised address last night President Pervez Musharraf said he was certain Mehsud was responsible for the suicide bomb and gun attack that killed Bhutto during an election rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi last week.
Pakistani officials named Mehsud as the chief suspect shortly after the attack, later claiming they had intercepted a phone call in which he congratulated his men for assassinating Bhutto. A purported spokesman for Mehsud denied he had anything to do with the murder.
Despite the government's insistence that Mehsud ordered the attack, many in Pakistan believe the militant (in his 30s) is being used as a scapegoat. Central to these suspicions is the long-running association between elements within the Pakistani security services and jihadi groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir. For its part, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has dismissed any suggestion of his involvement.
They suspect that elements within Pakistan's government and security establishment planned the assassination.
"We totally reject the government's contention that Baitullah Mehsud was behind this," Farhatullah Babar, a senior PPP leader, told The Irish Times.
"They are using his name to give protection to the real culprits. It is all too convenient for them to blame him."
Commander of Tehrik Taliban-e-Pakistan, an alliance of pro-Taliban factions in northeastern Pakistan, Mehsud is believed to lead an army of thousands of fighters.
His personal stronghold is in south Waziristan, a restive tribal area straddling the border with Afghanistan where leading al-Qaeda figures such as Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to have hidden since they slipped out of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Although Mehsud has denied any links with al-Qaeda, militants in the area have grown in strength and ambition since the arrival of the newcomers six years ago. Increasingly these so-called Pakistani Taliban have turned their attentions east to the country's interior, rather than across the border to Afghanistan.
Over the past year Mehsud has been accused by authorities on both sides of the border of orchestrating suicide bombings. In Pakistan, several hundred people have been killed in such attacks in the past six months. The number and scale of the strikes intensified after Pakistani troops stormed the militant-run Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.
There are many reasons why Bhutto would have annoyed militants aligned with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. She vocally supported the Red Mosque operation, repeatedly pledged to co-operate with the US in its so-called war on terror, and vowed to tackle Pakistan's pockets of growing extremism.
But the PPP is adamant Mehsud was not involved.
Farhatullah Babar says Mehsud had sent emissaries to Bhutto in October to inform her that he was not her enemy. The message came through "two different channels" after the suicide bombing attack on Bhutto's homecoming rally in Karachi, Babar said, adding that the PPP was certain the emissaries were credible.
"He said he was not involved in that attack, that he did not target women and that she should instead find out who her real enemies are," Babar says.
Some observers are not surprised that the Pakistani authorities have blamed Mehsud, pointing out that militants like him based in the country's northern borderlands with Afghanistan have become a major thorn in their side in recent years.
Tens of thousands of troops deployed to the region have met with stiff resistance. Several ceasefires and truces have been brokered only to unravel with the militant factions in a stronger position. The most recent army offensive ended last August when Mehsud succeeded in capturing 250 soldiers, releasing them only when the government agreed to hand over 25 of his men, including two convicted would-be suicide bombers.
There are already signs the government is stepping up its operations in the remote mountainous terrain of south Waziristan following Bhutto's assassination. In recent days, Pakistani troops have clashed with jihadi groups in the region, killing more than 28 militants. Local newspapers have reported that the authorities have drawn up a plan to "eliminate" Mehsud.