One of the many lights in the beacon of democracy was extinguished today. - GBP

Former PM Bhutto assassinated at Pakistan rally
Last Updated: Thursday, December 27, 2007 10:38 AM ET
CBC News
Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed Thursday in an apparent suicide attack at a campaign rally in which at least 20 others died.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, right, walks with former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto after a meeting at a hotel in Islamabad on Thursday, hours before her assassination in Rawalpindi.
An aide from her party told wire services that Bhutto had died after the attack at Rawalpindi's Liaqat Bagh park.
"At 6:16 p.m. [8:16 a.m. ET] she expired," said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.
A senior military official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, also said Bhutto had died.
Rehman Malik, Bhutto's security adviser, told the Associated Press she was shot in the neck and chest before the attacker blew himself up.
Other reports gave conflicting accounts of the attack, including a party aide saying Bhutto was killed by debris from the blast.
Bhutto had just finished speaking to the crowd of thousands when the blast occurred, freelance journalist Graham Usher told the CBC from the capital, Islamabad.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene also counted about 20 bodies, including police, and could see many other wounded people.
Bhutto escaped an assassination attempt in October when twin explosions ripped through crowds in Karachi welcoming her home from eight years of exile. Nearly 150 people died in the attacks.
Security requests ignored: adviser
The Western-educated Bhutto enjoyed high popularity at home and abroad and was leading Pakistan's largest political party heading into the Jan. 8 parliamentary election.
Bhutto's chief rival, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, told the BBC her death was a tragedy for "the entire nation."
Questions were immediately raised about how a suicide bomber could get so close to Bhutto after previous attacks.
Many observers were left to speculate whether the government of President Pervez Musharraf or Pakistan's security forces were involved in the attack, said Tariq Amin-Khan, an assistant professor of politics and public administration at Toronto's Ryerson University.
"Security has been very lax," Amin-Khan told CBC News in a telephone interview from Karachi. "One could fault the government for what it has not done."
Musharraf himself has been the target of numerous attacks blamed on Islamist militants, who have reported ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
"I find it difficult to believe that Musharraf would be directly involved, but you can't put it past the security service agencies," Amin-Khan said.
Bhutto's security adviser also said the government had ignored requests for beefed-up security, including bomb-jammers, which can thwart signals sent to detonate explosives.
A supporter of Benazir Bhutto's party cries as he sits among bodies after the bomb blast Thursday in Rawalpindi. (Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images)
"We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment including jammers, but they paid no heed to our requests," Malik said.
Observers said Bhutto's death would spark fierce protests in a country where political bloodshed is common.
'You will see lots of riots'
"All of Pakistan is in danger now," said Ibrahim Daniyal, secretary of the Pakistan Peoples Party Canada's ad hoc committee. "You will see lots of riots … lots of blood."
Upon hearing reports of her death, Bhutto's supporters at the hospital began chanting "Dog, Musharraf, dog."
The 54-year-old Bhutto, eldest daughter of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, served two terms as prime minister of Pakistan.
She went to the United States in 1969 to attend Radcliffe College in Massachusetts, then Harvard University and then to England where she studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford.
After her studies, she returned to Pakistan where her father was charged with conspiring to commit a political murder and executed in 1979.
Bhutto was placed under house arrest for five years shortly before her father's execution, and then went to Britain where she became leader-in-exile of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
Coalition government
After Bhutto's return to Pakistan in 1988, the PPP won 39 per cent of the popular vote and she was sworn in as Pakistan's prime minister in a coalition government.
She was deposed 20 months later on allegations of corruption, but was re-elected again in 1993, only to be sacked in 1996 on similar charges.
Meanwhile Thursday, four people were killed during a gun battle between pro-government supporters and backers of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif at a rally outside Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
A spokesman for the party said Sharif was about two kilometres away when pro-government party supporters opened fire.
On Dec. 15, Musharraf ended a month-long state of emergency that saw crackdowns on opposition supporters, independent media and the purging of independent judges from the country's Supreme Court.
Musharraf came to power in 1999 in a bloodless coup that saw Sharif go into voluntary exile for eight years.

(Associated Press)