By Augustine Anthony

ISLAMABAD, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Pakistani villagers said gunship helicopters launched strikes on Sunday in an area regarded as a stronghold of a Taliban commander linked with the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

The air attack on positions held by fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, a commander with close ties to al Qaeda, followed overnight shelling of villages around Ladha, a town in the remote South Waziristan tribal region.

There were no fresh casualty reports available, but the military said on Saturday that it had captured 40 militants, and killed 90 during operations in the area on Friday.

Mehsud was linked to a spate of suicide attacks last year, and his supporters are believed to be giving sanctuary to al Qaeda fighters and Pakistani jihadi groups angered by President Pervez Musharraf's alliance with the United States.

CIA Director Michael Hayden, in an interview published by the Washington Post on Friday, backed Pakistani authorities by blaming Mehsud for Bhutto's assassination on Dec. 27.

A Pakistani security official said on Saturday a 15-year-old would-be suicide bomber had told interrogators he would have been "next in line" to kill Bhutto had she survived that attempt,

The boy and his handler were caught in Dera Ismail Khan, the main town in a region near South Waziristan. They were the first significant arrests in the case. The boy said he was trained in the Mehsud lands, according to the security official. Public cynicism toward Musharraf's government spawned many conspiracy theories over Bhutto's death, and Pakistan is on edge ahead of a national election that has been delayed until Feb. 18.

Although Bhutto said she would confront religious forces that supported militancy, many people are more ready to believe Pakistan's own security agencies had a hand in the slaying of a contender for the prime ministership.

MUSHARRAF GOES TO EUROPE

Musharraf, whose popularity at home has slumped over recent months, set off on a four-country trip to Europe on Sunday that will take him to Brussels and Paris, before attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland ahead of talks in London.

The Pakistani leader, who came to power in a 1999 coup and only quit as army chief after securing five more years as president in November, is expected to come under pressure to give assurances parliamentary elections will be fair.

Violence has spread across North West Frontier Province and hundreds of people have been killed in a suicide bomb campaign, mostly targeting security forces, since commandos stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque in July to crush an armed movement.

Security forces are on high alert for possible attacks against Shi'ite Muslims on Sunday as they held Ashura processions to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, after a battle in A.D. 680.

Ashura is the tenth day of Moharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, and dedicated to mourning Hussein's martyrdom.

On Thursday a suicide bomber killed 11 people after a Shi'ite procession in Peshawar, the capital of NWFP. Unidentified gunmen shot dead a senior Intelligence Bureau official at Charsadda, about 20 km (12 miles) north of Peshawar on Sunday.

The northwest town of Hangu was put under curfew for Ashura, a security official said. The overwhelming majority of Pakistan's 160 million people are Sunni Muslims. Shi'ites make up around 15 percent.

Sectarianism has dogged Pakistan since the 1980s, but most people believe extremist Sunni groups, who share al Qaeda's world view, are targetting Shi'ites simply to destabilise the country. (With additional reporting by Sami Paracha and Hafiz Wazir; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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