Benazir Bhutto tried to hire bodyguards from Britain and the United States to protect her in Pakistan but President Pervez Musharraf blocked her plans, according to the former Premier's senior aides.
"She asked to bring in trained security personnel from abroad. In fact, she and her husband repeatedly tried to get visas for such protection but they were denied by the government of Pakistan," Mark Siegel, her US representative, was quoted by The Sunday Telegraph as saying.
While Bhutto had approached the London-based firm Armor Group, which guards UK diplomats in the Middle East, she also negotiated deals with the American Blackwater operation.
Though Armor Group said that it had no knowledge of any talks, a Blackwater spokesman confirmed the negotiations.
"We were approached to provide Bhutto's security, but an agreement was unfortunately never reached," the spokesperson told the British newspaper, but she refused to go into the precise details.
In fact, Bhutto had also contacted officials, diplomats and friends in America, Europe and the Gulf to urge Musharraf to improve her security following the suicide bomb attacks that killed more than 165 people during her homecoming parade on October 18.
Another US-based Bhutto adviser Husain Haqqani also confirmed that she wanted to use private international security contractors but said that the Musharraf regime would not approve the plan.
Though American diplomats took the highly unusual step of providing her directly with confidential intelligence about militant threats to her life, he claimed that the US, which has arranged for private contractors to guard Afghan President Hamid Karzai and leaders in Iraq, was also reluctant to press Musharraf, its ally, to change his mind.
"This was despite Washington seeing Bhutto as a lynchpin in its crucial diplomatic attempt to encourage Pakistan to return to democracy," he said.
