Dec 27, 2007 03:46 PM
SADAQAT JAN
ZARAR KHAN
Associated Press
RAWALPINDI – Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s opposition leader and one of the country’s best known politicians, was assassinated today in a stunning suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a rally.
The death of the charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary election into chaos and stirred fears of mass protests across Pakistan, a key ally for the West in the war against terrorism.
A wave of violence had already begun by this evening. In anger and grief, protesters rioted in the southern port city of Karachi, firing shots at police, setting tires and cars on fire and burning a gas station. One person was killed north of Karachi in the violent aftermath of the assassination.
Violence also erupted in other cities in Pakistan.
President Pervez Musharraf blamed terrorists for Bhutto’s death and urged the nation to remain calm.
The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto, 54, addressed thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, about 18 kilometres south of Islamabad, the capital.
She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto’s security adviser.
Sardar Qamar Hayyat, a leader from Bhutto’s party, said he was standing about 10 metres away from Bhutto’s vehicle.
“She was inside the vehicle and was coming out from the gate after addressing the rally when some of the youths started chanting slogans in her favour,” he said. “Then I saw a thin, young man jumping to her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away.”
Party supporter Chaudry Mohammed Nazir said that two gunshots rang out when Bhutto’s vehicle pulled into the main street and then there was a big blast next to her car.
A doctor on the team that attended to Bhutto said she had a bullet in the back of the neck that damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head. Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Bhutto was given an open heart massage, but the main cause of death was damage to her spinal cord, he said.
“This is the work of those terrorists with whom we are engaged in war,” Musharraf said in a nationally televised speech.
“I want to express my resolve and seek the co-operation from the entire nation and we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out,” the president said.
Musharraf announced three days of mourning and convened a high-level emergency meeting. He was expected to discuss whether to postpone the election, an Interior Ministry official said.
Nawaz Sharif, another former Pakistani prime minister and leader of a rival opposition party, called on Musharraf to resign. He announced that his party is boycotting the Jan. 8 elections.
In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the assassination a threat to democracy. He said the Jan. 8 election is important to democracy and urged Musharraf to let it go ahead.
Harper also said he’s concerned about increased instability in the region. Canadian troops are deployed in neighbouring Afghanistan as part of a NATO force supporting the Afghan government.
Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier condemned “in the strongest terms this attack ... Today’s violence is especially heinous in view of the upcoming elections on Jan. 8, 2008. The anti-democratic intent of the perpetrators could not be more obvious,”
In Crawford, Texas, U.S. President George W. Bush said: “The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice.”
No one claimed responsibility for the assassination.
Bhutto’s supporters blamed the president for complicity, but suspicion was likely to fall on Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who hated Bhutto for her close ties to the Americans and support for the war on terrorism. A local Taliban leader reportedly threatened to greet Bhutto’s return to the country from exile in October with suicide bombings.
At least 20 others were killed in today’s blast, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery. “At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.
Hours later, her body was carried out of the hospital in a plain wooden coffin by a crowd of supporters. Her body was expected to be transferred to an air base and brought to her hometown of Larkana.
Next to Musharraf, Bhutto was the best known political figure in the country. She had served two terms as prime minister between 1988 and 1996. She was respected in the West for her liberal outlook and determination to combat the spread of Islamic extremism, a theme she returned to often in her campaign speeches.
Her death will leave a void at the top of her Pakistan People’s party, the largest political group in the country.
As news of her death spread, supporters at the hospital in Rawalpindi smashed glass doors and stoned cars. Many chanted slogans against Musharraf, accusing him of complicity in her killing.
In Karachi, shop owners quickly closed their businesses as riots broke out. Fayyaz Leghri, a local police official, said gunmen shot and wounded two police officers.
One man was killed in a shootout between police and protesters in Tando Allahyar, a town 190 kilometres north of Karachi, said Mayor Kanwar Naveed. In the town of Tando Jam, protesters forced passengers to get out of a train and then set it on fire.
Violence also broke out in Lahore, Multan, Peshawar and many other parts of Pakistan, where Bhutto’s supporters burned banks, state-run grocery stores and private shops. Some set fire to election offices for the ruling party, according to Pakistani media.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who met with Bhutto just hours before her death, called her a brave woman with a clear vision “for her own country, for Afghanistan and for the region — a vision of democracy and prosperity and peace.”
Bhutto had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year exile on Oct. 18. Her homecoming parade in Karachi was also targeted by a suicide attacker, killing more than 140 people. On that occasion she narrowly escaped injury.
Bhutto was killed just a few kilometres from the scene of her father’s violent death 28 years earlier.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister and the founder of the party that his daughter would later lead, was executed by hanging in 1979 in Rawalpindi on charges of conspiracy to murder that supporters said was politically motivated by the then-military regime. His killing led to violent protests across the country.
As Bhutto addressed the rally today, she was flanked by a massive picture of her father.
Minutes later, the area was awash in blood.
