Word: zia
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Even before teams of U.S. and Pakistani investigators had begun sorting through the wreckage of the plane, many were convinced that its passengers were victims of terrorism. Officials speculated that Zia's plane was either struck by a surface-to-air missile or, more likely, blown up by a bomb planted aboard and detonated by remote control from the ground. Said Riaz Mohammed Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistan government: "Personally, I am 100% sure -- not 99%, 100% -- that it was sabotage...
...past several years has been blamed for hundreds of terrorist bombings in Pakistan. Over the past few months, Kabul and Moscow have issued strident warnings to Islamabad to stop allowing arms for the Afghan rebels, or mujahedin, to be smuggled across the Pakistani border into Afghanistan. Just days before Zia's death, the Kremlin issued a statement saying the Pakistani actions could not "be further tolerated." But many Western diplomats doubt that Moscow would go so far as assassinating Zia, and it is assumed that the Khad would not have acted without Soviet approval...
...Khad did not blow up Zia's plane, the President had a long list of other enemies with a motive for doing so, including militant political opposition groups and dissidents within the army. "Zia didn't have many friends left," said a U.S. congressional staffer. "Those who didn't dislike him hated...
...enemies, Zia was rightly seen as tough, uncompromising, even brutal. He ordered hundreds of dissidents arrested and imprisoned under the harshest conditions, and many were publicly flogged, in accordance with his policy of applying Islamic law to wrongdoers. Those who cultivated private relationships with Zia, however, came away with another impression -- that of a soft-spoken, self-effacing, often charming man who viewed himself as a servant of the people. "I really have been a reluctant ruler," he told a group of reporters recently. "But I am not a person to just give up in disgust and walk away...
...Zia seized power in July 1977, 14 months after being appointed army chief of staff by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father. "I am a military man," the general said at the time. "I will step down soon." But he did not. He had the popular Bhutto arrested for conspiring to murder a political opponent. Two years later, despite international pleas and protests, Bhutto was hanged...