benazir bhutto killed, page-3

Dreadful news!
She represented an enormous amount of hope!
A reconciliation of the two extremes, I guess, is almost always impossible! A shocking fate for that family and for that country:

From today's Age.

Suicide bomber assassinates Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto

December 28, 2007 - 9:19AM

Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber Thursday, plunging the nation into one of the worst crisis in its history and raising alarm around the world.

Violence erupted in cities across Pakistan as mobs went on the rampage in a wave of anger that left at least 10 people dead and dozens wounded, officials said.

Bhutto's death stunned world leaders who appealed for calm and warned that extremists must not be allowed to destabilise the nuclear-armed nation before January 8 general elections.

But that vote appeared increasingly in doubt, with Pakistan's other leading opposition figure, Nawaz Sharif, announcing his party was now pulling out and urging President Pervez Musharraf to resign.

US President George W. Bush described the killing as a "cowardly act" and telephoned Musharraf -- a crucial ally in the US-led "war on terror" against Islamic extremism -- to discuss the crisis.

Bhutto was leaving a campaign rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi when a suicide bomber pierced her security cordon and shot her in the neck. He then blew himself up, killing around 20 people, police and party officials said.

The powerful blast tore off limbs and shredded clothes. Many people ran in panic, screaming as they trampled over pieces of human flesh. Puddles of blood dotted the road.

"There was an enormous explosion, and then I saw body parts flying through the air," said Mirza Fahin, a professor at a local college.

"When the dust cleared, I saw mutilated bodies lying in blood. I have never seen anything so horrible in my life -- just parts of human beings, flesh, lying in the road."

Musharraf, who announced three days of national mourning, urged people to remain peaceful "so that the evil designs of terrorists can be defeated." All schools, businesses and banks were ordered to close down.

But mobs of protesters took to the streets, torching buildings, trucks and shops, blocking roads and uprooting rail tracks. Shots rang out in a number of cities.

Interior ministry spokesman Javed Cheema said 10 people died in the unrest after her death -- four in Karachi, four in rural Sindh province in the south and two in Lahore.

Some protesters fired into the air, while others shouted slogans including "Musharraf is a dog." In Jacobabad in the south, protesters set fire to shops belonging to relatives of interim premier Mohammedmian Soomro.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing, but Bhutto had previously accused elements in the intelligence services of trying to kill her and said she had also received death threats from Islamic militant groups including Al-Qaeda.

"She was waving to the crowd from the sunroof of her car and then there was a blast," Bhutto spokesman Farhatullah Babar told state television.

Bhutto, 54, became the first ever female prime minister of a Muslim nation when she took the helm in 1988 for the first of her two premierships.

Her father, also a prime minister, was hanged by the military in 1979 after being ousted from power.

Educated at Oxford and Harvard, Bhutto's return here in October after eight years of self-exile brought hopes of power-sharing with Musharraf. They were quickly shattered.

Her homecoming rally was hit in the deadliest attack in Pakistani history, killing 139 people, while her talks with Musharraf ended in acrimony after he imposed emergency rule on November 3, lifting it six weeks later.

Her funeral was expected to take place Friday in her home town of Larkana, deep in the rural south.

There were frenzied scenes as hundreds of people mobbed her simple wooden coffin as it was borne uneasily out of the Rawalpindi hospital for the journey to the airport.

Her husband Asif Zardari, who had just flown in from Dubai, and their three children had a brief chance to see the body before the air force jet took off for Sukkur, near Larkana, officials from Bhutto's party said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Bhutto's party successor and Zardari by telephone to press US support for the elections to go ahead, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

But Sharif, another two-time ex-premier and Bhutto's main political rival, said he would boycott the election.

"I demand that Musharraf quit power, without delay of a single day, to save Pakistan," he told reporters, calling for a nationwide strike.

World leaders roundly condemned what neighbour India called an "abominable act."

"The US strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," Bush told reporters.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon described it as a "heinous crime," and the UN Security Council condemned the "terrorist suicide attack" after meeting in emergency session to discuss the crisis.