WASHINGTON, Dec 31 Before her death, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had distanced herself from a US-brokered power-sharing deal between her and President Pervez Musharraf, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

According to veteran Post journalist Robert D. Novak, Ms Bhutto had sent a written complaint to a senior State Department official saying that her camp no longer viewed the backstage US move as a good-faith effort towards democracy.

Instead, it was seen as an attempt to preserve the politically endangered Mr Musharraf as US President George W. Bush's man in Islamabad, she wrote.

Since her return to Pakistan on Oct 18, Ms Bhutto sent several urgent pleas to the State Department, seeking US assistance for better protection.

The US reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that President Musharraf would not let anything happen to her.

Distraught by the lack of US interests in her protection, Ms Bhutto began to distance herself from the US-backed power-sharing arrangement, the Post said.

The US decision to arrange a Bhutto-Musharraf alliance was based on Pakistan's strategic importance as a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

“Bush was in a quandary. Bhutto was much tougher than Musharraf on Islamist extremists, but Bush had invested heavily in the general,” the Post observed.

Ms Bhutto was further disillusioned when President Musharraf imposed a state of emergency on Nov 3, but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned and urged her to go along with that process in return for concessions from Mr Musharraf.

“Bhutto agreed, but she got nothing in return,” the Post noted.

The report said that the unsuccessful Oct. 18 attempt on Ms Bhutto's life followed Islamabad's rejection of her requested security protection when she returned from eight years in exile. The Pakistani government vetoed FBI assistance in investigating the attack.

On Oct 26, Ms Bhutto sent an email to Mark Siegel, her friend and Washington spokesman, to be made public only in the event of her death.

“I would hold Musharraf responsible,” Ms Bhutto said in the message. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions.”

In early December, a former Pakistani government official supporting Ms Bhutto visited a senior US government official to renew her security requests.

“He got a brush off, a mindset reflected Dec 6 at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing,” the report said.Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, was asked to respond to fears by non-partisan American observers of a rigged election.

His reply “I do think they can have a good election. They can have a credible election. They can have a transparent and a fair election. It's not going to be a perfect election.”

“Boucher's words echoed through corridors of power in Islamabad,” the Post noted.

“Neither her shooting on Thursday nor the attempt on her life Oct 18 bore the trademarks of Al Qaeda,” the report said, urging the US administration to send an FBI to probe the murder.