Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org

Reluctant Hero · Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 7:37 pm Post subject: Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7161590.stm

Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a suicide attack.
Ms Bhutto - the first woman PM in an Islamic state - was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi when a gunman shot her in the neck and set off a bomb.

At least 16 other people died in the attack and several more were injured.

President Pervez Musharraf condemned the killing and urged people to remain calm but angry protests have gripped cities across the country.

Security forces have been placed on a state of "red alert" nationwide.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack. Analysts believe Islamist militants to be the most likely group behind it.

Map: Scene of the assassination
Ms Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), had served as prime minister from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996, and had been campaigning ahead of elections due on 8 January.

It was the second suicide attack against her in recent months and came amid a wave of bombings targeting security and government officials.

Nawaz Sharif, also a former prime minister and a political rival, announced his Muslim League party would boycott the elections.

He called on President Musharraf to resign, saying free and fair elections were not possible under his rule.

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency session and later said it "unanimously condemned" the assassination.

Scene of grief

Ms Bhutto's remains have been removed from Rawalpindi General Hospital in a van. They are reportedly being taken to the city's airport.

The attack occurred close to an entrance gate of the city park where Ms Bhutto had been speaking.

Police confirmed reports Ms Bhutto had been shot in the neck and chest before the gunman blew himself up.

She died at 1816 (1316 GMT), said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of the PPP who was at hospital.

Some supporters at the hospital wept while others broke into anger, throwing stones at cars and breaking windows.

Protests erupted in other cities as news of the assassination spread with unconfirmed reports of several deaths in clashes between demonstrators and security forces:

A number of cars were torched in Karachi, capital of the PPP's heartland province of Sindh, where shots were also reportedly fired

Cars were reportedly set on fire in Hyderabad, also in Sindh Province

Police in Peshawar, in the north-west, used batons and tear gas to break up a rally by protesters chanting anti-Musharraf slogans

One man was killed in a "shoot-out" between police and protesters in Tando Allahyar, the mayor said

Unrest was also reported in Quetta, Multan and Shikarpur

'Security lapse'

Mr Musharraf has announced three days of national mourning.

Protesters set vehicles on fire in the streets of Hyderabad

Mr Sharif said there had been a "serious lapse in security" by the government.

But an old friend of Ms Bhutto, Salman Tassir, told the BBC World Service he did not think criticism should be directed at the government.

"There have been suicide attacks on Gen Musharraf also," he told Newshour.

"I mean it is extremism and the fanatics who are to blame."

Earlier on Thursday, at least four people were killed ahead of an election rally Mr Sharif had been preparing to attend close to Rawalpindi.

Ms Bhutto's death has plunged the PPP into confusion and raises questions about whether January elections will go ahead as planned, the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says.

BENAZIR BHUTTO

Father led Pakistan before being executed in 1979
Spent five years in prison
Served as PM from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996
Sacked twice by president on corruption charges
Formed alliance with rival ex-PM Nawaz Sharif in 2006
Ended self-imposed exile by returning to Pakistan in October
Educated at Harvard and Oxford

The killing was condemned by India, the US, the UK and others.

US President George W Bush telephoned Mr Musharraf for what the White House would only describe as a "brief" conversation on the situation.

Ms Bhutto returned from self-imposed exile in October after years out of Pakistan where she had faced corruption charges.

Her return was the result of a power-sharing agreement with President Musharraf

He had granted an amnesty that covered the court cases she was facing.

But relations with Mr Musharraf soon broke down.

On the day of her arrival, she had led a motor cavalcade through the city of Karachi.

It was hit by a double suicide attack that left some 130 dead.

Rawalpindi, the nerve centre of Pakistan's military, is seen as one of the country's most secure cities.

Many analysts say attacks like those on Thursday show the creeping "Talebanisation" of Pakistan.

Radical Muslims calling for Islamic law, and fiercely opposed to the US, have become increasingly active in Pakistani politics in recent years, analysts say.

_________________
Visit the Our Scotland Blog at http://our-scotland.blogspot.com/

RFM · Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:02 am Post subject:

Horse feathers!

Ms. Butto had asked Musharraf, who is the government by the way, for police protection on several occasions since the first attempt on her life when she returned, and those requests were refused. Musharraf has not ordered an investigation into her killing nor did he for the first attempt. The India Times reported that several men were engaged in the assassination, not one, and the gunmen escaped when the suicide bomber detonated himself.

Ms. Butto also left a statement with a close friend and author in London to be released in the event of her death, saying that if she had been killed it was the Pakstani Intelligence Service that would have done it. The Paki Intel is the exclusive domain of the dictator general, soon to be elected leader in a rigged election. That pre-mortem statement does not seem to find currency in the western press other than with PRI.
If it walks lke a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck. Or as the writer IV Warshawski put it, don't piss on my shoe and try to tell me its raining.

Avatar · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:30 am Post subject:

I dont think we are going to see any outrage at this from western governments - its another case of my enemies enemy is my friend as long as musharaff stands as a partner in the fight against alqeeda and other extremesists the west will over look anything that benefits them, we have seen this pattern so many times before its unlikely it will change now.
_________________
"Quite simply, Labour have been caught red-handed so often that no-one believes a word they say any more."

iainmhor · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:38 am Post subject:

The assasination of Bhutto certainly seems to have ignited the masses in Pakistan against Musharraf. Well done the ISI - looks like it will backfire on them and the dictatorship.

Bhutto was corrupt and a proxy for imperialism and her PPP is equally corrupt, dynastic and nepotistic. I see her son has been anointed the next leader - bloody students.

RFM · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:06 pm Post subject:

For an interesting analysis:

http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature8.cfm?REF=1