Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto assassinated - Dec 27, 2007 - HISTORY.com Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto assassinated Share this: Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto assassinated Author Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto assassinated URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 2007, Benazir Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime minister and the first democratically elected female leader of a Muslim country, is assassinated at age 54 in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. A polarizing figure at home and abroad, Bhutto had spent three decades struggling to stay afloat in the murky waters of Pakistani politics. To many of her supporters, she represented the strongest hope for democratic and egalitarian leadership in a country unhinged by political corruption and Islamic extremism. Born in 1953 to a wealthy landowning family, Bhutto grew up in the privileged world of Pakistan’s political elite, receiving degrees from Harvard and Oxford. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the populist-leaning Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1967.

He then served as president and prime minister from 1971 to 1977, when he was ousted in a bloodless military coup led by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and charged with authorizing a political opponent’s murder. Her father’s overthrow and subsequent execution in April 1979 thrust a young Benazir Bhutto into the political spotlight. She and her mother, Nusrat, whom she succeeded in 1982 as the PPP’s chairperson, spent several years in and out of detention for protesting his arrest and campaigning against General Zia. In August 1988, Zia died in a plane crash; three months later, Bhutto won the general election and formed a government, becoming the first woman—and, at 35, the youngest person—to head a Muslim state in modern times. Dismissed in 1990 after less than half a term as prime minister, she was reelected in 1993 and served again until 1996.

Both times, she was removed from office by the sitting president—Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990 and Farooq Leghari in 1996—amid charges of corruption and incompetent governance. After her second dismissal from office, Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, faced allegations of various forms of financial misconduct, including accepting multimillion-dollar kickbacks and laundering money through Swiss banks. Zardari spent eight years in prison, while Bhutto lived in exile in London and Dubai with the couple’s three children. In 2007, under pressure from Bhutto’s supporters within the U.S. government, President Pervez Musharraf granted amnesty to Bhutto, Zardari and other Pakistani politicians with pending graft charges. On October 18 of that year, despite a spate of death threats from Islamic militants, Bhutto returned to Pakistan with plans to participate in the 2008 general election. On the day of her arrival, she narrowly escaped a suicide bomb attack on her convoy that killed at least 136 people and injured more than 450.

On December 27, 2007, as Bhutto was waving to a crowd at a PPP rally in Rawalpindi, a gunman opened fire on her bulletproof vehicle. A bomb then exploded near the car, killing more than 20 people and wounding 100 others, including Bhutto. She was pronounced dead later that night and buried the next day in her hometown of Gardi Khuda Bakhsh, next to her father’s grave. The exact cause of her death remains in dispute: A subsequent investigation by Britain’s Scotland Yard ruled that Bhutto died of head injuries caused by the force of the explosion, while the PPP maintained that she died from gunshot wounds. Bhutto’s death sparked widespread violence across Pakistan, with riots and demonstrations leading to violent police crackdowns. The political turmoil caused international fears of instability in a nuclear-armed nation already embroiled in a fight against Islamic extremists. In the weeks and months following Bhutto’s death, Pakistani moderates and Western leaders waited anxiously to see who would emerge as her successor. Zardari, who had taken the helm of the PPP after his wife’s assassination, was elected president of Pakistan in September 2008.

In the month following Bhutto’s murder, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistani officials named Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani militant with links to al-Qaeda, as the mastermind behind the assassination. Mehsud, who denied the charge, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in August 2009. Related Videos 10 Famous Political Leaders who were Assassinated 10 Famous Political Leaders who were Assassinated by Ejaz Khan A murder of an individual is called assassination, who is usually a famous celebrity, politician, religious figure or royal. Usually in cases of assassination there is a clear motive – jealousy, political or religious idealism, contract killing, revenge etc. As the world moved into the modern day, the killing of important people began to become more than a tool in power struggles between rulers themselves and was also used for political symbolism, such as in the propaganda of the deed. Ever since the Moabite King Eglon was stabbed to death on his throne in 1200 BCE and probably long before that, the political leaders have been killed for any number of reasons.

Assassinations may be prompted by religious, ideological, political, or military reasons but the end result is targeted killing of a public figure, whom we know well or we love. Here is a list of 10 notable assassinations of most famous and beloved political leaders and the places where they were assassinated. Lets start the list of Famous Political Leaders who were Assassinated. 10 Famous Political Leaders who were Assassinated. 1. Benazir Bhutto: Pakistan The Chair-Person of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto was the most famous Pakistani woman socialist-democratic politician who was the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan. B. B. was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms (1988–1990; 1993–1996). She was Pakistan’s first and to date only female prime minister and was the eldest child of Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and First Lady of Pakistan Nusrat Bhutto, and was the wife of current President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari.

As the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was an icon of the battle for democracy, and stands with only a handful of female executive leaders who have shaped the global events of the last century. On 27 December 2007, Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally for the PPP at Liaquat National Bagh in the city of Rawalpindi, where she addressed a rally of Pakistan Peoples Party supporters for the run-up to the parliamentary elections 2008. Bhutto was leaving the rally at her white Toyota Land Cruiser when the attack occurred. After entering her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through its sunroof to wave to the crowds. At this point, a gunman fired shots at her and subsequently explosives were detonated near the vehicle killing approximately 20 people. Bhutto was critically wounded and was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital but she was declared dead at 18:16 local time. 2. John F. Kennedy: USA John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his death in 1963.

After Kennedy’s military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 during World War II in the South Pacific, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history. In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for Vice President, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for President. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President. On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin’s bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die. 3.

Indira Gandhi: India Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term (1980–84). Gandhi was the second female head of government in the world after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, and she remains as the world’s second longest serving female Prime Minister as of 2012. She was the first woman to become prime minister in India. She was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. She established closer relations with the Soviet Union, depending on that nation for support in India’s long-standing conflict with Pakistan. She was also the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared state of emergency in order to ‘rule by decree’ and the only Indian Prime Minister to have been imprisoned after holding that office. She was assassinated at 9:20 AM on October 31, 1984, at Prime Minister’s Residence at No. 1, Safdarjung Road in New Delhi.

She was killed by two of her Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star. 4. Martin Luther King, Jr.: United States Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism. King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. On April 4, 1968, a shot rang out as King stood on the motel’s second floor balcony.

The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder. The events following the shooting have been disputed. After emergency chest surgery, King was pronounced dead at St. Joseph’s Hospital in an hour. King’s autopsy revealed that though only thirty-nine years old, he had the heart of a sixty-year-old man, perhaps a result of the stress of thirteen years in the civil rights movement. The assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 100 cities. 5. Abraham Lincoln: USA Abraham Lincoln, nicknamed Honest Abe, was the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Honest Abe steered his country through the American Civil War and ended slavery within the country’s boundaries. He also had the reputation of being respectful and fair. His tenure in office was occupied primarily with the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. Lincoln successfully defused the Trent affair, a war scare with Britain late in 1861.

Lincoln successfully rallied public opinion through his rhetoric and speeches; his Gettysburg Address (1863) became an iconic symbol of the nation’s duty. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation. Lincoln has consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest of all U.S. Presidents. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated, though an unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson thirty years before in 1835. 6.

Liaquat Ali Khan: Pakistan Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan was one of the leading Founding Fathers of modern Pakistan, statesman, lawyer, and political theorist who became and served as the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, in addition, was also the first Defence minister and minister of Commonwealth and Kashmir Affairs, from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. Liaquat rose to political prominence as a member of the All India Muslim League. He played a vital role in the independence of India and Pakistan. In 1947, he became the prime minister of Pakistan. He is regarded as the right-hand man of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League and first governor-general of Pakistan. On 16 October 1951, he was shot twice in the chest during a public meeting of the Muslim City League at Company Bagh, Rawalpindi. The police immediately shot the assassin who was later identified as Saad Akbar Babrak. Khan was rushed to a hospital and given a blood transfusion, but he succumbed to his injuries. The exact motive behind the assassination has never been fully revealed.

The assassination is still a very big question mark because it was never investigated properly. 7. King Faisal: Saudi Arabia Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was King of Saudi Arabia from 1964 to 1975. As king, he is credited with rescuing the country’s finances and implementing a policy of modernization and reform, while his main foreign policy themes were pan-Islamism, anti-Communism, and pro-Palestinian nationalism. He successfully stabilized the kingdom’s bureaucracy and his reign had significant popularity among Saudis. On 25 March 1975, King Faisal was shot point-blank and killed by his half-brother’s son, Faisal bin Musaid, who had just come back from the United States. The murder occurred at a majlis. In the waiting room, Prince Faisal talked to Kuwaiti representatives who were also waiting to meet King Faisal. When the Prince went to embrace him, King Faisal leaned to kiss his nephew in accordance with Saudi culture. At that instant, Prince Faisal took out a pistol and shot him. 8.

Thomas D’Arcy McGee: Canada Thomas D’Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee was an Irish Nationalist, Catholic spokesman, journalist, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. He fought for the development of Irish and Canadian national identities that would transcend their component groups. He is, to date, the only Canadian victim of political assassination at the federal level. In terms of economics he promoted modernization, calling for extensive economic development by means of railway construction, the fostering of immigration, and the application of a high protective tariff to encourage manufacturing. Politically active, he advocated a new nationality in Canada, to escape the sectarianism of Ireland. On April 7, 1868, McGee participated in a parliamentary debate that went on past midnight. Afterward he walked to his Sparks St. boarding house at 2:00 AM. While trying to enter the boarding house ,the door was locked from the inside and McGee was waiting for the landlady to open the door, he was purportedly assassinated by Patrick J. Whelan as the door was being opened. Patrick J. Whelan, a Fenian sympathizer and a Catholic, was accused, tried, convicted, and hanged for the crime. 9.

Rafic Hariri: Lebanon Rafic Baha El Deen Al-Hariri (November 1, 1944 – February 14, 2005), was a business tycoon and the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation, 20 October 2004. He headed five cabinets during his tenure. Hariri dominated the country’s post-war political and business life and is widely credited with reconstructing Beirut after the 15-year civil war. Hariri was assassinated on 14 February 2005 when explosives equivalent to around 1000 kg of TNT were detonated as his motorcade drove past the St. George Hotel in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The investigation, by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, into his assassination is still ongoing and currently led by the independent investigator Daniel Bellemare. In its first two reports, UNIIIC indicated that the Syrian government may be linked to the assassination.According to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news investigation, the special UN investigation team had found strong evidence for the responsibility of Hezbollah in the assassination.

Hariri’s killing led to massive political change in Lebanon, including the Cedar Revolution and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. 10. Mahatma Gandhi: India Indian political activist and spiritual leader, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. The voice of non-violence in an increasingly violent world, when the emaciated Indian holy man was gunned down on the streets of New Delhi by a university student turned activist, it was a tremendous blow not only to India, but to the entire world. His policies of compassion towards the poor and non-violent resistance served as a blueprint for peaceful change, while his ability to affect both Hindu and Muslim alike made peace of a kind, possible in his war torn nation. The only positive thing that can be said, if such is possible, is that it was fortunate his assailant was a fellow Hindu. On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was shot while he was walking to a platform from which he was to address a prayer meeting.

The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting upon a payment to Pakistan. it is good one information Farjam Mubarik Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was Assassinated - 2007 Crime Magazine by Michael Thomas Barry On December 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan and the first democratically elected female leader of a Muslim country was assassinated. A polarizing figure at home and abroad, Bhutto had spent three decades struggling to stay afloat in the murky waters of Pakistani politics. To many of her supporters, she represented the strongest hope for democratic and egalitarian leadership in a country unhinged by political corruption and Islamic extremism. Born in 1953 to a wealthy landowning family, Bhutto grew up in the privileged world of Pakistan’s political elite, receiving degrees from Harvard and Oxford. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the populist-leaning Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1967.

He then served as president and prime minister from 1971 to 1977, when he was ousted in a bloodless military coup led by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and charged with authorizing a political opponent’s murder. Her father’s overthrow and subsequent execution in April 1979 thrust a young Benazir Bhutto into the political spotlight. She and her mother, Nusrat, whom she succeeded in 1982 as the PPP’s chairperson, spent several years in and out of detention for protesting her father’s arrest and actively campaigned against General Zia. In August 1988, Zia died in a plane crash; three months later, Bhutto won the general election and formed a government, becoming the first woman, and, at 35, the youngest person to head a Muslim state in modern times. Dismissed in 1990 after less than half a term as prime minister, she was reelected in 1993 and served again until 1996.

Both times, she was removed from office by the sitting president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990 and Farooq Leghari in 1996, amid charges of corruption and incompetent governance. After her second dismissal from office, Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, faced allegations of various forms of financial misconduct, including accepting multimillion-dollar kickbacks and laundering money through Swiss banks. Zardari spent eight years in prison, while Bhutto lived in exile in London and Dubai with the couple’s three children. In 2007, under pressure from Bhutto’s supporters within the U.S. government, President Pervez Musharraf granted amnesty to Bhutto, Zardari and other Pakistani politicians with pending graft charges. On October 18th of that year, despite a spate of death threats from Islamic militants, Bhutto returned to Pakistan with plans to participate in the 2008 general election. On the day of her arrival, she narrowly escaped a suicide bomb attack on her convoy that killed at least 136 people and injured more than 450.

On December 27, 2007, as Bhutto was waving to a crowd at a PPP rally in Rawalpindi, a gunman opened fire on her bulletproof vehicle. A bomb then exploded near the car, killing more than 20 people and wounding 100 others, including Bhutto. She was pronounced dead later that night and buried the next day in her hometown of Gardi Khuda Bakhsh, next to her father's grave. The exact cause of her death remains in dispute: A subsequent investigation by Britain's Scotland Yard ruled that Bhutto died of head injuries caused by the force of the explosion, while the PPP maintained that she died from gunshot wounds. Bhutto’s death sparked widespread violence across Pakistan, with riots and demonstrations leading to violent police crackdowns. The political turmoil caused international fears of instability in a nuclear-armed nation already embroiled in a fight against Islamic extremists. In the weeks and months following Bhutto's death, Pakistani moderates and Western leaders waited anxiously to see who would emerge as her successor. Zardari, who had taken the helm of the PPP after his wife’s assassination, was elected president of Pakistan in September 2008.

In the month following Bhutto’s murder, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistani officials named Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani militant with links to al-Qaeda, as the mastermind behind the assassination. Mehsud, who denied the charge, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in August 2009. Michael Thomas Barry is the author of Murder & Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link: Bhutto Assassination Ignites Disarray - The New York Times The New York Times Asia Pacific |Bhutto Assassination Ignites Disarray Search By SALMAN MASOOD and CARLOTTA GALL DEC. 28, 2007 Continue reading the main story RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto , the Pakistani opposition leader and twice-serving prime minister, was assassinated Thursday evening as she left a political rally here, a scene of fiery carnage that plunged Pakistan deeper into political turmoil and ignited widespread violence by her enraged supporters. Ms.

Bhutto, 54, was shot in the neck or head, according to differing accounts, as she stood in the open sunroof of a car and waved to crowds. Seconds later a suicide attacker detonated his bomb, damaging one of the cars in her motorcade, killing more than 20 people and wounding 50, the Interior Ministry said. News of her death sent angry protesters swarming the emergency ward of the nearby hospital, where doctors declared Ms. Bhutto dead at 6:16 p.m. Supporters later jostled to carry her bare wooden coffin as it began its journey to her hometown, Larkana, in southern Pakistan, for burial. In Karachi and other cities, frenzied crowds vented their rage, blocking the streets, burning tires and throwing stones. Photo The grave of Benazir Bhutto will lie next to that of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in familys ancestral graveyard near Naudero, Pakistan. Credit STR/Pakistan — Reuters The death of Ms. Bhutto, leader of Pakistan’s largest political party, throws Pakistan’s politics into disarray less than two weeks before parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan.

8 and just weeks after a state of emergency was lifted. There was immediate speculation that elections would be postponed and another state of emergency declared. A deeply polarizing figure, Ms. Bhutto spent 30 years navigating the turbulent and often violent world of Pakistani politics, becoming in 1988 the first woman to lead a modern Muslim country. She had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt upon her return to Pakistan two months ago. Her death now presents President Pervez Musharraf with one of the most potent crises of his turbulent eight years in power, and Bush administration officials with a new challenge in their efforts to stabilize a front-line state — home to both Al Qaeda and nuclear arms — in their fight against terrorism. Photo Pakistani paramilitary soldiers patrolled in Karachi a day after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Credit Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The attack bore hallmarks of the Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan. But witnesses described a sniper firing from a nearby building, raising questions about how well the government had protected her in a usually well-guarded garrison town and fueling speculation that government sympathizers had played a part.

On Thursday evening, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin to local law enforcement agencies informing them about posts on some Islamic Web sites saying that Al Qaeda was claiming responsibility for the attack, and that the plot was orchestrated by Ayman al-Zawahri, the group’s second-ranking official. One counterterrorism official in Washington said that the bulletin neither confirmed nor discredited these claims. The official said that American intelligence agencies had yet to come to any firm judgments about who was responsible for Ms. Bhutto’s death. Photo A coffin bearing Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on Thursday. Credit Ahmad Masood/Reuters As world leaders lined up to express outrage at the killing of arguably Pakistan’s most pro-Western political figure, a grim-faced President Bush said that the best way to honor her would be “by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.” Speaking to reporters while vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., Mr. Bush attributed Ms. Bhutto’s death to “murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy.” He telephoned Mr. Musharraf several hours after the attack. Mr.

Musharraf went on national television on Thursday evening, describing the killing as “a great national tragedy” and announcing a three-day period of national mourning. He called it a terrorist attack and vowed to continue to fight to root out the terrorists. “I appeal to the nation to remain peaceful and show restraint,” he said. Photo Benazir Bhutto arriving at the rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday. Credit Mohammad Javed/Associated Press Despite the president’s appeal, politicians and government officials said they feared more violence in the coming days from those protesting her death, but also from militants who would try to take advantage of the uncertain situation. One former government minister said the backlash could make Mr. Musharraf’s position untenable. “Musharraf will not be able to control the situation now,” he said. Before her return in October, Ms. Bhutto had spent nearly eight years in self-imposed exile to avoid corruption charges stemming from her time as prime minister in the 1990s. Her return had been promoted by Washington as part of an agreement to share power with Mr. Musharraf and rescue his increasingly unpopular government by giving it a more democratic face.

She was a leading contender to become prime minister after the Jan. 8 elections, campaigning as an advocate for Pakistan’s return to party politics after eight years of military rule under Mr. Musharraf, who relinquished his military post only this month. She also presented herself as the individual who could best combat growing militancy in Pakistan. Her comments condemning militancy and suicide bombing had made her a target of Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan. Her homecoming procession in Karachi was attacked by two bomb blasts that killed 150 supporters and narrowly missed killing her. Much of the rage over her death is nonetheless likely to be directed at Mr. Musharraf, who kept her out of power for over eight years and had shown her only a grudging welcome at first, and later outright hostility. Photo Benazir Bhutto before the attack in Rawalpindi on Thursday. Credit T. Mughal/European Pressphoto Agency The country’s other main opposition leader, another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif , announced Thursday evening that he was pulling his party out of the elections. A longtime political rival of Ms. Bhutto’s, he had lately become an ally in pressing for a return to democracy in Pakistan.

“This is a tragedy for her party, and a tragedy for our party and the entire nation,” Mr. Sharif said as he visited the hospital on hearing the news of her death. Tauqir Zia, a retired general who recently joined Ms. Bhutto’s party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, said it seemed that elections were unlikely to go ahead now in any case. “P.P.P. is now in turmoil for the time being,” he said. “It has to find a new leadership.” Photo Hundreds of supporters had gathered at Liaqut Bagh, a park that is a common venue for rallies. Credit B.K.Bangash/Associated Press Other officials and politicians said they, too, thought elections would have to be postponed. “This is going to lead to chaos and turmoil,” said the former interior minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who was nearly killed last week in a suicide bombing at a mosque in his home village. “I was anticipating this, that suicide bombings would increase and there will be an exacerbation and intensification in the attacks. This was bound to happen.” There were differing accounts of the attack. Zamrud Khan, a member of her party, said Ms.

Bhutto was shot in the head from gunfire that originated from behind her car in a building nearby. Seconds later a suicide bomber detonated his bomb, damaging one of the cars in her motorcade and killing some 15 people on the ground, Mr. Khan said. The Interior Ministry spokesman quoted by the state news agency, The Associated Press of Pakistan, said that the suicide bomber first fired on Ms. Bhutto and then blew himself up. Photo A bomb exploding at the rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Thursday. Credit John Moore/Getty Images Amid the confusion after the explosion, the site was littered with pools of blood. Shoes and caps of party workers were lying on the asphalt. More than a dozen ambulances pushed through crowds of dazed and wounded people at the scene of the assassination. Witnesses described hearing gunfire barely a minute before the loud explosion. Sajid Hussain, who had a shrapnel wound on his left hand, said he had heard at least three shots fired. “Then there was a big explosion, the earth seemed to tremble, I fell down. And everything was covered in black smoke.” Mr.

Zia, the retired general, said he was sitting in a car ahead of Ms. Bhutto before the blast. “A leader has to come out and lead and she did exactly that,” he said. “But I would ask where was the security? How did they allow people to come so close to her? It is inconceivable. There is a definite lapse of security.” Photo Benazir Bhutto in front of a poster of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, after she won first parliamentary elections in 1988. Credit Douglas E. Curran/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Dr. Abbas Hayat of Rawalpindi General Hospital said that doctors had tried for 35 minutes to resuscitate Ms. Bhutto, who he said had wounds to her head as well as shrapnel injuries. Dr. Mohamed Mussadik, head of the medical college in Rawalpindi and a top surgeon who attended to Ms. Bhutto at the hospital, said she was clinically dead on arrival, according to Athar Minallah, a lawyer who had served in the Musharraf government but who has since helped lead the movement against him. In a telephone interview, Mr.

Minallah said Dr. Mussadik had told him that the bullet wound was in the head. Mr. Minallah said an independent, credible investigation into the assassination was critical, perhaps in partnership with an outside country. A precedent for this, he said, was the investigation into the murder of Ms. Bhutto’s brother 11 years ago. “The government has to allow it,” he said, “because the entire blame is on the government. Everyone I have spoken to believes it is the government that has done this. That makes the investigation of utmost importance.” Photo Benazir Bhutto at a press conference in Islamabad in November. Credit T. Mughal/European Pressphoto Agency Apparently no autopsy was done, because the police did not request one, Dawn TV reported. Lawyers calling for an international neutral investigation are raising questions about the speed with which Ms. Bhutto’s body was moved. The body arrived in her southern home province, Sindh, before dawn, party officials told Agence-France Presse. The assassination is likely to deepen suspicion among Ms. Bhutto’s supporters of Pakistan’s security agencies. Ms.

Bhutto has long accused parts of the government, namely the country’s premier military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of working against her and her party because they oppose her liberal, secular agenda. In a letter she sent to Mr. Musharraf just before her return to Pakistan in October, she listed “three individuals and more” who should be investigated for their sympathies with the militants in case she was assassinated. Photo Benazir Bhutto at an address on Wednesday. Credit Tariq Mahmood/AFP/Getty An aide close to Ms. Bhutto said that one of those named in the letter was Ijaz Shah, the director general of the Intelligence Bureau, another of the country’s intelligence agencies, and a close associate of Mr. Musharraf’s. The second official was the head of the country’s National Accountability Bureau, which had investigated Ms. Bhutto on corruption charges. The third was a former official in Punjab Province who had mistreated her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, when he was in jail awaiting trial on corruption charges. In an interview after Ms. Bhutto released the letter, a close aide to Mr.

Musharraf said the people named in the letter were all political enemies of Ms. Bhutto. He said they did not have sympathy with militants and the government was doing all it could to protect Ms. Bhutto. A former senior Pakistani intelligence official said he did not believe that the country’s intelligence agency was involved. He blamed militants for the assassination, but said government-provided protection was far too lax and the area surrounding the rally should have been better secured. “For sure, the government was complicit in the security aspects,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I think the security arrangements of the police, they were not professionally handled.” Salman Masood reported from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and Carlotta Gall from Kabul, Afghanistan. Reporting was contributed by Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan, Mark Mazzetti from Washington, David Rohde from New York and Jane Perlez from Sydney, Australia. A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Bhutto Is Killed at Rally, and Pakistan Faces Outrage and New Turmoil.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Benazir Bhutto assassinated - CNN.com Benazir Bhutto assassinated Pakistan's former PM Benazir Bhutto assassinated in Rawalpindi after rally NEW: Interior Ministry says Bhutto died from gunshot wound to the neck NEW: Body being flown to Sukkur, accompanied by husband and her three children Three days of national mourning; Police fear violent backlash RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday after addressing a large gathering of her supporters. The bomb explodes near Bhutto's vehicle following a political rally in Rawalpindi. more photos » Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said. The attacker then blew himself up. The bomb attack killed at least 22 others, doctors said. Video of the scene just moments before the explosion showed Bhutto stepping into a heavily guarded vehicle to leave the rally. Watch how the tragedy unfolded » John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, said Bhutto was standing through the sunroof of her vehicle, waving to supporters, when two shots rang out.

Bhutto fell back into the vehicle, and almost immediately a bomb blast rocked the scene, sending twisting metal and shrapnel into the crowd, he added. Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto's vehicle. Watch aftermath of the attack. Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital -- less than two miles from the bombing scene -- where doctors pronounced her dead. Her body was removed from the hospital -- carried above a crowd of supporters -- late Thursday night, and a Pakistan Air Force plane is flying the body to Sukkur, accompanied by her husband and three children, said Pakistan People's Party leader Sen. Safdar Abbasi. Bhutto is scheduled to be buried in the ancestral graveyard of the Bhutto family at Gari-Khuda Baksh in Sindh province Friday afternoon, he added. Chaos erupted at the hospital when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived to pay his respects to Bhutto less than three hours after her death. Hundreds of Bhutto supporters crammed into the entrance shouted and cried, some clutching their heads in pain and shock. Sharif called it "the saddest day" in Pakistan's history.

"Something unthinkable has happened," he said. see full schedule » Sharif said his party will boycott Pakistan's January 8 parliamentary elections in the wake of the assassination. President Pervez Musharraf said the killers were the same extremists that Pakistan is fighting a war against, and announced three days of national mourning. Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death. Rioters burned tires and blocked roads in Karachi and other cities, police sources said. Police fired on an angry mob, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, Geo TV reported. Bhutto's husband issued a statement from his home in Dubai saying, "All I can say is we're devastated, it's a total shock." He arrived in Pakistan late Thursday. President Bush said those responsible "must be brought to justice" and praised Bhutto as a woman who had "fought the forces of terror." He said: "She refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country." The number of wounded was not immediately known. However, video of the scene showed ambulances lined up to take many to hospitals.

Don't Miss I-Report: Your condolences The assassination happened in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh Park, named for Pakistan's first prime minister -- Liaquat Ali Khan -- who was assassinated in the same location in 1951. The attack came just hours after four supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said. Several other members of Sharif's party were wounded, police said. Bhutto, who led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and was the first female prime minister of any Islamic nation, was participating in the parliamentary election set for January 8, hoping for a third term. A terror attack targeting her motorcade in Karachi killed 136 people on the day she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile. View timeline. » CNN's Mohsin Naqvi, who was at the scene of both bombings, said Thursday's blast was not as powerful as that October attack. Thursday's attacks come less than two weeks after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lifted an emergency declaration he said was necessary to secure his country from terrorists.

Bhutto had been critical of what she believed was a lack of effort by Musharraf's government to protect her. Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, she wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers. "The sham investigation of the October 19 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf," Bhutto wrote. E-mail to a friend CNN's Mohsin Naqvi contributed to this report Bhutto Assassination Sparks Chaos Bhutto Assassination Sparks Chaos Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, December 28, 2007 RAWALPINDI, Pakistan , Dec. 27 -- Benazir Bhutto, for decades the central figure in a tortured struggle to bring democratic rule to Pakistan, was assassinated Thursday afternoon as she waved to supporters after a political rally, plunging the country into new turmoil just days before scheduled elections. The death of the former prime minister creates a massive political void in this nuclear-armed nation of 165 million people and opens the door to potentially greater violence in a year of almost nonstop tumult here.

It leaves in tatters Washington's strategy of fighting extremism by pairing Bhutto with President Pervez Musharraf, a close U.S. ally who has been under siege in the streets for months. Around the world Thursday, government leaders pleaded with Bhutto's countrymen to remain calm. In Texas, President Bush urged the Pakistani people "to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life." There was no immediate assertion of responsibility for the killing. Musharraf, who addressed the nation on television, condemned the assassination and blamed Islamic extremists. He declared three days of national mourning. But Bhutto's supporters pinned responsibility on allies of Musharraf, the former chief of the army. Partisans of the slain leader rioted in cities and towns across the country, burning police cars, looting shops and firing guns. Thursday night, grieving supporters carried Bhutto's body in a plain wooden coffin from the hospital where she had been declared dead. Her body was taken to an airport and was being flown to her family's ancestral home in the Larkana district of southern Pakistan for burial at an as-yet-unannounced time.

Musharraf was closeted with advisers late Thursday, debating strategy. It was unclear whether the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections for which Bhutto was campaigning when she was killed would proceed; at least one major party vowed to boycott the vote. "If there's a lot more violence, then it's possible the whole democratic process will be derailed," political analyst Hasan-Askari Rizvi said. Other observers saw glimmers of conciliation. "This can turn into anarchy," said Talat Masood, a retired general and political analyst. "Or it can turn into something Benazir Bhutto could not achieve in life but may achieve in death. It could provide the momentum needed for a return to the rule of law and democracy. It could go either way." Bhutto, 54, led one of Pakistan's most important political families. She had many fans but also persistent critics who accused her of corruption and derided her position in her party: chairperson for life. She narrowly survived a similar assassination attempt just two months ago, when attackers killed more than 140 people in coordinated blasts targeting a homecoming procession shortly after she returned from eight years of exile.

Since then, she had been campaigning across the country, hoping to win for a third time the job of prime minister, saying all the while that she knew she was likely to be attacked again. Thursday's strike came at dusk, in a public park where another Pakistani prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in 1951. A few miles away is the site of the prison, now demolished, where Bhutto's father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was confined. He was president from 1971 to 1973 and then prime minister until 1977, when he was hanged by the military-led government that deposed him. Benazir Bhutto, wearing a white head scarf, addressed a rally in the park, then got into her bulletproof sport-utility vehicle. She was being driven out of the park when she asked that the vehicle's sunroof be opened so she could bid thousands of supporters farewell, according to witnesses and several aides, including one who had been sitting next to her.

CONTINUED 1 Benazir Bhutto, 54, Lived in Eye of Pakistan Storm - The New York Times The New York Times Asia Pacific |Benazir Bhutto, 54, Lived in Eye of Pakistan Storm Search By JANE PERLEZ and VICTORIA BURNETT DEC. 28, 2007 Continue reading the main story Photo Benazir Bhutto in front of a poster of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, after she won first parliamentary elections in 1988. Credit Douglas E. Curran/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Charismatic, striking and a canny political operator, Benazir Bhutto , 54, was reared amid the privileges of Pakistan ’s aristocracy and the ordeals of its turbulent politics. Smart, ambitious and resilient, she endured her father’s execution and her own imprisonment at the hands of a military dictator to become the country’s — and the Muslim world’s — first female leader. A deeply polarizing figure, Ms.

Bhutto, the “daughter of Pakistan,” was twice elected prime minister and twice expelled from office in a swirl of corruption charges that propelled her into self-imposed exile in London for much of the past decade. She returned home this fall, billing herself as a bulwark against Islamic extremism and a tribune of democracy. She was killed on Thursday in a combined shooting and bombing attack at a rally in Rawalpindi, one of a series of open events she attended in spite of a failed assassination attempt against her the day she returned to Pakistan in October. A woman of grand aspirations with a taste for complex political maneuvering, Ms. Bhutto was first elected prime minister in 1988 at the age of 35. The daughter of one of Pakistan’s most charismatic and democratically inclined prime ministers, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she inherited the mantle of the populist Peoples Party that he founded, and which she came to personify. Despite numerous accusations of corruption and an evident predilection for luxury, Ms. Bhutto, the pale-skinned scion of a wealthy landowning family, successfully cast herself as a savior of Pakistan’s millions of poor and disenfranchised.

She inspired devotion among her followers, even in exile, and the image of her floating through a frenzied crowd in her gauzy white head scarf became iconic. In October, she staged a high-profile return to her home city of Karachi, drawing hundreds of thousands of supporters to an 11-hour rally and leading a series of political demonstrations in opposition to the country’s military leader, President Pervez Musharraf. But in a foreshadowing of the attack that killed her, the triumphal return parade was bombed, killing at least 134 of her supporters and wounding more than 400. Ms. Bhutto herself narrowly escaped harm and shouted at later rallies, “Bhutto is alive!” Despite her courageous, or rash, defiance of danger, her political plans were sidetracked from the moment she set foot in Pakistan: She had been negotiating for months with Mr. Musharraf over a power-sharing arrangement, only to see the general declare emergency rule instead. The political dance she has deftly performed since her return — one moment standing up to President Musharraf, the next seeming to accommodate him — stirred hope and distrust among Pakistanis.

A graduate of Harvard and Oxford, she brought the backing of the governments in Washington and London, where she impressed with her political lineage and considerable charm and was viewed as a palatable alternative to the increasingly unpopular Mr. Musharraf. But her record in power left ample room for skepticism. During her two stints in that job — first from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996 — she developed a reputation for acting imperiously and impulsively. She faced deep questions about her personal probity in office, which led to corruption cases against her in Switzerland, Spain and Britain, as well as in Pakistan. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was jailed for eight years in Pakistan on corruption charges before his release on bail in 2004. During her years in office, as during those of her rival, the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan ran up enormous and unserviceable foreign debts and billions of dollars in foreign aid went unaccounted for. Ms. Bhutto, though progressive in her approach to Islam, was not above bending to the will of religious conservatives for when politically expedient.

Photo Benazir Bhutto at a press conference in Islamabad in November. Credit T. Mughal/European Pressphoto Agency Ms. Bhutto grew up in the most rarefied atmosphere the poor, turbulent country had to offer. One longtime friend and adviser, Peter W. Galbraith, a former American ambassador to Croatia, recalled meeting Ms. Bhutto 1962 when they were children: he the son of John Kenneth Galbraith, the economist and American ambassador to India; she the daughter of the future Pakistani prime minister. Mr. Galbraith’s father was accompanying Jacqueline Kennedy to a horse show in Lahore. The two met again at Harvard, where Mr. Galbraith remembered Ms. Bhutto arriving as a prim, cake-baking 16-year-old fresh from a Karachi convent. Ms. Bhutto often spoke of how her father encouraged her to study the lives of legendary female leaders, including Indira Gandhi and Joan of Arc, and as a young woman, she observed his political maneuvering up close. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to.

Sign Up Privacy Policy After her father’s death — he was hanged by another general who seized power, Zia ul-Haq — Ms. Bhutto stepped into the spotlight as his successor. She called herself chairperson for life of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, a seemingly odd title in an organization based on democratic ideals and one she has acknowledged quarreling over with her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, in the early 1990s. Until her death, Ms. Bhutto ruled the party with an iron hand, jealously guarding her position, even while leading the party in absentia for nearly a decade. Members of her party saluted her return to Pakistan, saying she was the best choice against President Musharraf. Chief among her attributes, they said, was her sheer determination. But her egotism and her proclivity for back-room deals provoked distrust among detractors and some supporters. “She believes she is the chosen one, that she is the daughter of Bhutto and everything else is secondary,” said Feisal Naqvi, a corporate lawyer in Lahore who knew Ms. Bhutto. Ms. Bhutto’s marriage to Mr.

Zardari was arranged by her mother, a fact that Ms. Bhutto has often said was easily explained, even for a modern, highly educated Pakistani woman. To be acceptable to the Pakistani public as a politician she could not be a single woman, and what was the difference, she would ask, between such a marriage and computer dating? Mr. Zardari, 51, is known for his love of polo and other perquisites of the good life like fine clothes, expensive restaurants, homes in Dubai and London, and an apartment in New York. He was minister of investment in Ms. Bhutto’s second government. And it was from that perch that he made many of the deals that haunted Ms. Bhutto, and him, in the courts. There were accusations that the couple had illegally taken $1.5 billion from the state. It is a figure Ms. Bhutto vigorously contested. Indeed, one of Ms. Bhutto’s main objectives in seeking to return to power was to restore the reputation of her husband, especially after his prison term, said Abdullah Riar, a former senator in the Pakistani Parliament and a former colleague of Ms. Bhutto’s.

“She told me, ‘Time will prove he is the Nelson Mandela of Pakistan,’” Mr. Riar said. Bhutto assassinated | World news | The Guardian Bhutto assassinated · Shot twice, then bomb exploded · Riots across country · Fears over election Benazir Bhutto waves from her car just seconds before being assassinated in a bomb attack following a political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images Share on Messenger Close The assassination of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last night triggered violent convulsions across the country, casting grave doubts on elections scheduled for January 8 as well as marking a dark finale to a tragedy-strewn life. Angry scenes erupted in cities across the country, where enraged supporters torched businesses and trains, attacked police and blocked roads with burning tyres. Gunfire rang out on the streets of Karachi, the port city where Bhutto spent much of her life. Two months after her triumphant return from exile, a gunman fired several shots at Bhutto as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi, hitting her in the neck and chest.

Seconds later a fireball caused by a suicide bomb engulfed her bulletproof car and killed at least 20 supporters. The former prime minister was rushed to a nearby hospital where distraught supporters burst through doors, smashed windows and tried to storm into the operating theatre where surgeons struggled to save her life. She was pronounced dead shortly afterwards. Supporters wept and crumpled to the ground outside the hospital. Cries of "Musharraf is a murderer" and "Long Live Bhutto" rang out. Initial suspicions for the attack fell on Islamist militants who had previously threatened to kill the 54-year-old scion of Pakistan's greatest political dynasty. Late last night there were unconfirmed reports that al-Qaida had claimed responsibility on an Islamist website. In October, Bhutto survived a suicide attack on her homecoming parade in Karachi that killed 140. The assassination is the climax of an extraordinary chain of crises to have rocked Pakistan in the past nine months as President Pervez Musharraf sought to consolidate his grip on power amid sieges, suicide bombings, high political drama and a surge in Islamist violence. In a brief televised address Musharraf declared three days of mourning.

"This is the work of those terrorists with whom we are engaged in war," he said. "We will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists." Analysts said Musharraf might seize on the turmoil to postpone the January poll and possibly reimpose the emergency rule he established on November 3 but lifted shortly before Christmas. Riaz Malik, of the opposition Pakistan Movement for Justice party said many fingers would be pointed at the Musharraf regime. He said: "The impact will be that Pakistan is in more turmoil - it will be the start of civil war in Pakistan. There is a very real danger of civil war." The UN security council held an emergency session to discuss the assassination in the nuclear-armed country, which it described as a threat to international peace and stability. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he was "shocked and outraged". In a statement urging countries to cooperate with the Pakistani authorities, the security council "underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice". Pakistan's alarmed western allies mixed condemnation and tributes with calls for restraint and a continuation of the fragile political process. In Britain, Gordon Brown hailed Bhutto as "a woman of immense personal courage and bravery".

The prime minister said: "She risked everything in her attempt to win democracy in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto may have been killed by terrorists, but the terrorists must not be allowed to kill democracy in Pakistan." A sombre President George Bush, speaking near his ranch in Crawford, Texas, condemned the killing as a "cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy". In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram to Musharraf saying Bhutto's murder was "a challenge thrown down by forces of terrorism, not only to Pakistan but also to the entire international community," Russian news reports said. The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said the subcontinent had "lost an outstanding leader". The murder is the latest catastrophe to befall the Bhutto family. Benazir Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was deposed by a military dictator in 1977 and hanged two years later. Her two brothers were killed in murky circumstances in following decades. Bhutto became the Muslim world's first female prime minister in 1988, but a second term of office ended amid corruption allegations in 1996.

She returned from exile last October in the garb of a democratic champion but was criticised for holding power-sharing talks with Musharraf. Yesterday her killer struck as she left Liaqat Bagh, a public park in Rawalpindi where she addressed thousands of supporters at an election rally. As she was driven out of the park - standing from the sunroof of her bulletproof vehicle wearing her trademark white headscarf and waving to supporters - a young man leapt forward brandishing a gun. Several gunshots rang out and Bhutto fell back inside. Seconds later a blast rocked the vehicle, showering it with shrapnel. Rescuers found Bhutto lying in pool of blood on the back seat. A senior party official, Amin Fahim, who had been sitting beside her, said he heard "between three and five shots". Amir Qureshi, a bodyguard from Bhutto's youth wing who had been jogging alongside her vehicle, said she was shot first in the neck, then in the head. "This is a black day not only for Pakistan but also the rest of the world," he told the Guardian from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for leg wounds.

Doctors administered open heart massage but Bhutto died from a bullet that severed her spinal cord, one medic at the Rawalpindi hospital said. The opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, also recently returned from exile, arrived at the hospital and sat by Bhutto's body. "Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death," he said later. "Don't feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers." Earlier, a Sharif rally in Rawalpindi had come under fire from a gunman, who killed at least four people and wounded several more. Sharif told the BBC: "I think perhaps none of us is inclined to take up the elections. We'll have to sit down and take a very serious look at the current situation." Late last night Bhutto's body, in a plain wooden coffin, was flown to her home province of Sindh accompanied by her husband Asif Zardari and their three children, who had flown in from Dubai. She may be buried as early as today near her ancestral village in Larkana.

Bhutto's resting place will be inside a mausoleum built in recent years to house her father and two brothers. Now, in the latest chapter of Pakistan's most cursed political dynasty, she will join them. Fatal hours · Bhutto meets with visiting Afghan president Hamid Karzai at the end of his two-day visit · Riot police man security checkpoints in Rawalpindi. Hundreds of people forced to pass through metal detectors and undergo body searches before entering the park where the Bhutto rally is to be held · Bhutto arrives at park, leaves the podium and gets into her car · She waves to supporters through the sunroof as the car makes its way through the crowds · Two gunshots heard and Bhutto disappears into the car. She is shot in the head and neck · Suicide bomber explodes a device, killing at least 20 other people · Bhutto undergoes emergency operation at Rawalpindi general hospital · Declared dead at 6.16pm local time Additional reporting by Waqar Kiani

Question: Which female politician was assassinated in Pakistan in December 2007?
Answer: Benazir Bhutto