BENAZIR BHUTTO ASSASSINATED IN SUICIDE ATTACK

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: The opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday as she campaigned to become prime minister of Pakistan for a third time.

Witnesses said a man fired at Bhutto from close range, quickly followed by an explosion that the government said was caused by a suicide attacker. At least a dozen more people were killed in the attack.

Dr. Abbas Hayat, professor of pathology at Rawalpindi General Hospital where Bhutto was taken, said doctors tried to revive her for 35 minutes before she was declared dead at 6:16 p.m. He said she had shrapnel wounds and head injuries but could not confirm whether she had bullet injuries.

At the hospital where Bhutto was taken, a large number of police officers began to cordon off the area as angry party workers smashed windows. Amid the crowd, dozens of people beat their chests, and chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf. Many protesters shouted “Musharraf Dog!”

Musharraf blamed terrorists for the assassination and announced three days of mourning for Bhutto.

“We will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out,” he said on national television. He met with top government officials Thursday night, in part to decide whether to delay the elections, a close aide to Musharraf said.

The aide dismissed complaints from members of Bhutto’s party that the government failed to provide adequate security for her.

Bhutto had been warned by the government before her return to Pakistan that she faced threats to her security. She survived another suicide attack that killed 134 people in Karachi on Oct. 19 as she returned from eight years of self-imposed exile abroad. After that attack, Bhutto blamed extremist Islamic groups who she said wanted to take over the country.

Bhutto herself had complained that the government’s security measures for her Karachi parade were inadequate. The government maintained that she ignored their warnings against such public gatherings and that holding them placed herself and her followers in unnecessary danger.

Bhutto’s death is the latest blow to Pakistan’s treacherous political situation and leaves her party leaderless in the short term. A leading Pakistani political and military analyst, Hasan Askari Rizvi, said her Pakistani People’s Party would be unable to compete effectively in the hotly contested parliamentary elections being held Jan. 8.

The assassination also adds to the enormous pressure over Pakistan on the administration of President George W. Bush, who blamed “murderous extremists” for the deed.

“The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act,” he said.

The United States has given billions in aid to Musharraf’s government without accomplishing its main goals of finding Osama bin Laden or ending the activities of Islamic militants in border areas with Afghanistan.

Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the political rally at Liaqut Bagh, a park that is a common venue for rallies and speeches in Rawalpindi, adjacent to Islamabad, the capital.

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, and shards of glass were strewn on the ground. Pakistani television cameras captured images of ambulances pushing through crowds of dazed and injured people at the scene of the assassination.

Witnesses at the scene described the assassin as opening fire on Bhutto and her entourage, hitting her at least once in the neck and once in the chest, before blowing himself up, CNN reported.

Her assassination comes just days after Musharraf lifted a state of emergency in the country, which he had used to suspend the Constitution and arrest thousands of political opponents and which he said he had imposed in part because of terrorist threats by extremists in Pakistan. Militants based in the country’s tribal areas have carried out a record number of suicide bombings in Pakistani this year.

Bhutto had returned to Pakistan to present herself as the answer to the nation’s troubles: a tribune of democracy in a state that has been under military rule for eight years, and the leader of the country’s largest opposition political party, founded by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a democratically inclined prime minister. He was hanged in 1979 after being convicted of authorizing the murder of an opponent.

With frustration in Washington growing over Musharraf’s shortcomings and his delays in returning the country to civilian rule, the White House found Bhutto appealing. She was openly critical of Musharraf’s ineffectiveness at dealing with Islamic militants and welcomed U.S. involvement, unlike another Musharraf rival and former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

Bush administration officials began working behind the scenes over the summer to help Bhutto and Musharraf create a power-sharing deal to orchestrate a transition to democracy that would leave Musharraf in the presidency.

But Bhutto was a polarizing figure in Pakistan. During her two turbulent tenures as prime minister, first from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996, she often acted imperiously and impulsively.

She and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, were accused of taking $1.5 billion from the state, a figure that Bhutto vigorously contested.

Bhutto faced to corruption cases against her in Switzerland, Spain and Britain, as well as in Pakistan. She flew back to Pakistan in October after Musharraf gave her amnesty and agreed to discuss giving up control of the military.

Musharraf imposed emergency rule on Nov. 3, suspending the Constitution as the Supreme Court neared a decision on the legality of his re-election as president while also serving as army chief. Bhutto responded by criticizing the emergency rule but not taking a leading role against it.

On Nov. 28, Musharraf resigned as army chief, and the next day he was sworn in as a civilian president.

He also set parliamentary elections for Jan. 8. Some opposition parties tried to organize a boycott, but Bhutto declined to go along, and the boycott fizzled. Musharraf formally lifted the state of emergency on Dec. 15.

(By Salman Masood. David Rohde and Graham Bowley reported from New York)

Fonte: INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE