**Ayesha Tanzeem, BBC Correspondent in New York, Interviews Mir Azaad Khan Baloch of The Government of Balochistan and reports that he is a fraud. However, this interview can only be found on Mir Azaad Khan Baloch's website**
From: News Central Asia
Tariq Saeedi in Ashgabat with Habibullah in Quetta
Ashgabat/Quetta, 14 September 2006 (nCa) --- Some startling bits of information have come to light in the Bugti saga. Among other things, there is the stunning revelation that Nawab Akbar Bugti was a prisoner of Balach Mari.
The fact has also emerged that the army team was trying to negotiate with Bugti in order to evacuate him for medical treatment.
Our story is built on a narrow but dependable base of sources. For obvious reasons, the sources were reluctant to identify themselves publicly.
Several sources, testifying independently, believe that Akbar Bugti was a prisoner of Balach Mari and he did not go to the Karmu Wadh cave complex on his own free will.
There is widespread understanding that Bugti would have preferred to fight to death rather than slink to the safety of a cave.
Some sources say that all of his guards in the caves were from Mari tribe and except for a handful of servants hardly anyone from the Bugti tribe was seen around Nawab Akbar Bugti. No one from Bugti tribe was allowed to approach the cave without personal clearance from Balach Mari.
There is also the truth that many Balochs believe that Maris had not completely forgiven Akbar Bugti for his role in suppressing the Mari tribe uprising during the mid-1970’s. There is strong feeling that Balach may have used the opportunity to settle the old scores.
Some sources from the Bugti tribe maintain that Nawab Akbar Bugti was a spent force. His authority was fragmented at best and there were several younger and well educated contenders to his position.
He was, the sources maintain, a helpless old man and it was not difficult for Balach to manipulate him.
Persons privy to the current orientation and aspirations of BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army) argue that dead Bugti was more useful for the cause of Balach and BLA than live Bugti.
Considered by many an arrogant and fierce serdar but a loyal Pakistani, Bugti was neither the initiator nor the prime mover of BLA. A bipartisan analyst in Quetta said that we must look for a motive in every case and in Bugti’s case only BLA and Balach are the ones that have benefited from his death.
He also said that support for BLA had eroded considerably during the past few months and nothing short of a dramatic incident – such as violent death of Akbar Bugti – would have given BLA a fresh start.
We have also obtained information from reliable sources that the army team conducting operation in the Kohlu area was empowered to conduct negotiations with Akbar Bugti. The package they were allowed to offer Bugti included free medical treatment in any of the medical establishments of his choice in Pakistan.
The fact that the army team was trying to negotiate with Bugti is confirmed by the position of dead bodies recovered from the cave.
From the sequence of bodies found in the cave, it is clear that a colonel was forward-most in the mouth of the cave followed by two majors and one captain. This is not combat formation.
In hand-to-hand combat a colonel – the senior-most officer in this case – would not lead the charge.
In close combat situation the usual procedure is that the command cell stays behind while the especially trained rank and file soldiers together with a junior officer spearhead the assault. No trained commander would alter this procedure when entering a cave with the intent of fighting.
The certainty that some kind of negotiation was in progress between the army team and Akbat Bugti is also supported by the fact that Bugti’s body was recovered not far from where the colonel fell.
After the bodies of the army officers had been recovered, the logistics team had to dig only a few feet inward to reach the body of Bugti. He was the first of the cave dwellers whose body came into sight; all others were either several feet behind him or deep in the cave.
This is not how besieged Balochs would fight.
Akbar Bugti was a frail old man, too weak to carry, let alone use, any weapon. Had there been a scenario of fighting, his gunmen would have been in the front and Bugti would have been deep in the cave.
Some local observers believe that Bugti may have agreed to negotiate; something that was not acceptable to Balach.
While there is no direct evidence, some observers suggest that the explosion in the cave was caused by a remote controlled device. The logical reconstruction of the last moments of Bugti suggests as he moved forward to talk to the army team, someone pulled him from behind and he fell on his back. At the same time, a remote control device was triggered to cause an explosion in the cave that led to caving in of the roof, crushing the army officers and Akbar Bugti to their death.
The questions remain as to who activated the satellite phone and who fired on the army helicopter and why, especially when there were not enough guards around Bugti to protect him?
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