It’s a sad day for the forces of moderation and cooperation in the Muslim world. Early this morning US Time, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed a short time after a political rally.
Reports from the scene state that multiple shots where fired, and one person detonated an explosive vest at the time of the attack. Mrs Bhutto had met with Afgan leader Hamid Karzai earlier in the day and was en route to another engagement. The attack happened just after 6PM local time in Pakistan after addressing a rally in Rawalpindi.
The shots were fired as Mrs Bhutto was moving to get into her transport to travel away from the rally. It seems the attackers picked the natural choke point, when she would be separated from the crowd and easier to target, to strike.
She was rushed to a nearby hospital, and was still alive when she was taken into the emergency room (according to reports) but doctors were unable to stabilize her.
Today’s events are grim portents for violent political struggle in the only Islamic country that has a confirmed nuclear capability. President Musharraf has been the military dictator of that country for many years, and the first open or quasi open elections were slated for January. Mrs Bhutto was a leading candidate to become Prime Minister, and was a natural to begin the transition towards a democracy.
Many in the press and political spheres will naturally try to finger Musharraf as being behind this attack, but it is not in his best interest to see Mrs Bhutto dead. Musharraf is a master of political calculus, and there is a very close to zero chance he would make a mistake like this. Indeed he had repeatedly warned Mrs Bhutto that the situation in Pakistan was unstable enough that her safety was a grave concern to him. Today that concern came to reality.
More likely than not this will eventually be traced back the the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, and will further expose their ties to the Taliban and Al Queda. In the next few days, as this horrible event is investigated, we are likely to find that the attackers (yes, plural) were the pointy end of a larger network, quite possibly Al Queda itself.
Al Queda has been struggling the last several years to remain relevant. They have been unable to carry out any attack or impact world politics to any degree since the Madrid bombings threw the election to the Socialists in Spain who quickly surrendered. Make no mistake, a Bhutto election was a threat to Al Queda. She would have been empowered to begin draining the swamp that is the ISI and exposing (complete with jail time, torture and executions) the Al Queda / Taliban operatives who work there. Faced with that future, most likely people connected to these groups decided to kill her instead.
The world is more dangerous as a result of today’s events.
