PAKISTANI opposition leader Benazir Bhutto

[2NSW Sydney Radio Club (keitha) http://www.radio2doublev.org/]

PAKISTANI opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and
bomb attack after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi today, her party
said.

"She has been martyred," party official Rehman Malik said.

Ms Bhutto, 54, died in hospital in Rawalpindi. Ary-One Television said
she had been shot in the head.

Police said a suicide bomber fired shots at Bhutto as she was leaving
the rally venue in a park before blowing himself up.

"The man first fired at Bhutto's vehicle. She ducked and then he blew
himself up," police officer Mohammad Shahid said.

Police said 16 people had been killed in the blast.

"It is the act of those who want to disintegrate Pakistan because she
was symbol of unity. They have finished the Bhutto family. They are
enemies of Pakistan," senior Bhutto party official Farzana Raja said.

A witness at the scene of the attack said he had heard two shots
moments before the blast. Another witness saw bodies and a mutilated
human head strewn on a road outside the park where she held her rally.

A spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf said he had to confirm the
news before commenting. Earlier, party officials had said Ms Bhutto
was safe.

A suicide bomber killed nearly 150 people in an attack on Ms Bhutto on
October 19 as she paraded through the southern city of Karachi on her
return from eight years in self-imposed exile.

Islamist militants were blamed for that attack but Ms Bhutto had said
she was prepared to face the danger to help the country.

People cried and hugged each other outside the hospital where she died
and residents of Karachi, her home town, said they had heard gun shots
after news of Ms Bhutto's death spread, apparently from her enraged
supporters.

Ms Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was Pakistan's first
popularly elected prime minister. He was executed in 1979 after being
deposed in a military coup.

Ms Bhutto became the first female prime minister in the Muslim world
when she was elected in 1988 at the age of 35. She was deposed in
1990, re-elected in 1993, and ousted again in 1996 amid charges of
corruption and mismanagement.

She said the charges were politically motivated but in 1999 chose to
stay in exile rather than face them.

Ms Bhutto's family is no stranger to violence.

Both of her brothers died in mysterious circumstances and she had said
al-Qaida assassins tried to kill her several times in the 1990s.

Intelligence reports have said al-Qaida, the Taliban and Pakistani
jihadi groups have sent suicide bombers after her
.
Sent: 12/27/2007 2:39 PM
Earlier today, radical Islamist terrorists carried out a suicide bomb
attack at a rally by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a gunman
assassinated her. These attacks constituted an unmistakable attack
against Pakistan's moderate center. Earlier in the day, four people
were murdered ahead of a rally by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
These events mark a watershed in a still rising radical Islamist
revolution. In the wake of these attacks, it is clear that Pakistan is
being Talibanized and is increasingly in danger of seeing its
government toppled by radical Islamist elements.

Throughout the course of the year, Pakistan has been drifting steadily
toward a decisive showdown with an evolving radical Islamist
revolution. In fact, even after a period of emergency rule, several
dynamics in Pakistan remain relatively unchanged from earlier this
year when radicals attempted to leverage Islamabad's Lal Masjid (Red
Mosque) to foment a revolution by which Pakistan would put under
Taliban-like Islamist rule. First, Pakistan's moderate center, though
arguably but not certainly a majority of the population, continues to
shrink. Second, radical elements are increasing their attacks on
leading moderates be they President Musharraf's government or
opposition leaders such as former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who
was assassinated today, or Nawaz Sharif in a continuing war of
attrition against the moderate leadership class that forms the
backbone of that nation's governing society. Third, radical elements
continue to target organs and personnel of state control, including
the police and army. In short, Pakistan is in the midst of a low-level
Islamist revolution not too much unlike that which preceded Ayatollah
Khomenei's dictatorship in Iran. Pakistan is not yet at the point
where the success of a radical Islamist revolution is foreordained,
but very difficult measures may well be required to preclude such an
outcome.

In my opinion, in the near-term, President Musharraf is likely to
reimpose tough restrictions on large gatherings and indefinitely
postpone the upcoming January Parliamentary elections. Arrests of
those who incite violence against the government are also likely. A
number of Islamist parties could be barred from government. Even
tougher emergency decrees targeting select Mosques and their Imams are
possible.

There is still a small chance that President Musharraf would allow the
election to go on as scheduled. However, given that the leading
Opposition figure has been assassinated, arguments that the outcome
would represent the will of Pakistan's people had Ms. Bhutto been
alive, would be weak. At the same time, inaction by President
Musharraf would signal weakness and encourage the Islamist extremists
to run even larger risks against what they would perceive as an
eroding government. Furthermore, the radical Islamists see themselves
in a life-and-death struggle against moderate society that they see as
a barrier to the kind of harsh Islamist rule they seek to impose.
Given the religious overtones of their pursuit of political power,
they are not likely to compromise. Most definitely, the Islamists
would not be inclined to negotiate away what they believe Pakistan's
government could not achieve through law enforcement and military
means. Hence, I believe odds favor President Musharraf's taking the
former course.

If President Musharraf does, in fact, adopt a new period of emergency
rule, it is in the U.S. national interest to fully support the
embattled President and his moderate government. The risk of a nuclear
armed state coming under the rule of Talibanist elements would
substantially exacerbate U.S. national security risks and have a
potentially far more damaging global impact that Iran's Revolution
had.

While some idealists within President Bush's Administration are likely
to oppose the emergency measures, President Musharraf still has a
strong card to play that he held back during his earlier period of
emergency rule: linking continued cooperation with the U.S. in its war
on terrorism to U.S. support for his government against the radical
elements that seek to topple it.

Foreign policy is a two-way street. There are no free lunches. No
nation can reasonably be expected to serving another's interests in
the absence of reciprocity. Nations cooperate to pursue shared
interests or address common risks. Each must have something to gain,
if the relationship is to endure. If the U.S. is unwilling to offer
President Musharraf full support at this critical juncture in
Pakistan's history, President Musharraf could make clear that he is no
longer able to assist the U.S. with its ongoing war on radical
Islamist terrorists. Instead, he could argue that his nation's
survival as a moderate state must take precedence over the objectives
of his faraway critics whose criticism only weakens prospects for the
survival of Pakistan's moderate government and emboldens the extremist
elements that seek to snuff out a moderate Pakistan.

Ultimately, when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, pragmatism will
likely trump idealism. Whether the U.S. made decisions that promoted
stability or encouraged chaos in a critical nuclear power will define
the constraints under which U.S. decision making takes place.
Confronted by the possibility of such a stark loss of Intelligence and
military cooperation, not to mention the even worse scenario of
Talibanist elements gaining control of a nuclear power and
establishing an Iranian-style theocracy there, most rational policy
makers would calculate that larger interests make it necessary for the
U.S. to offer full support for President Musharraf. Hence, should
President Musharraf declare emergency rule and cancel elections for an
indefinite period of time, any U.S. criticism and intervention to
bring an end to the emergency rule is likely to be far more muted than
it was during the last episode. In short, the U.S. strategic interest
against Pakistan's coming under the control of Islamist extremists
will outweigh any tactical disagreements concerning the reinstitution
of harsh emergency rule in Pakistan.

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