Benazir Bhutto Murdered: Al-Qaeda Claims Killing
BENAZIR Bhutto Is dead. Murdered. The can only be sadness. There are too few politians and leaders to admire. And now there is one less.
Writes Ali Eteraz: Ayman al-Zawahiri has claimed her killing…
Benazir Bhutto, a leading democratic leader of Pakistan, is dead. Suicide bombing in the city of Rawalpindi. 20 others dead. Like her or not, very sad day. Deepest levels of hell for those organizing such bestiality.
I suspect there are going to be riots like crazy. Actually, from what I’m hearing they’ve already started.
Apparently her car was shot at before the suicide bomber killed himself. When the guy started shooting he was apprehended, then he blew himself up. (Geo TV). It was the shot to the neck that killed her, say her people.
Its very important to see what Musharraf does. If he does not arrest any terrorist sympathizers in the military, that’s a problem. Musharraf did kill Akbar Bugti, the Balochi leader, a few years ago.
Rawalpindi, incidentally, was the city where Benazir’s father, Zulfiqar, was hung by General Zia ul Haq in 1978. One of my relatives reminds me that Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was also killed in Rawalpindi, circa 1950. The place Benazir was killed is called Liaquat Bagh — Liaquat Garden.
Additionally, there were sniper shots at a Nawaz Sharif — the other democratic leader and former prime minister — rally as well, killing four people. He was not there. Nawaz Sharif is ineligible to run for elections. Benazir was eligible.
On the web:
AFP: “Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf appealed to the nation to remain peaceful on Thursday after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto ‘so that the evil designs of terrorists can be defeated,’ state TV said.”John Podhoretz: “The murder of Bhutto moves foreign policy, the war on terror, and the threat of Islamofascism back into the center of the 2008 campaign.”
Roger Simon: “Since all politics is semi-local, it will be interesting to see what ramifications this event has on domestic presidential politics.”
Statement by the American Islamic Congress on the Murder of Benazir Bhutto
AP: Bush condemns Bhutto assassination.
Jules Crittenden: Who killed Benazir Bhutto? A roundup.
The Belmont Club: “The next few days will show whether the Pakistani Army — for it will surely not be the Taliban — can rededicate itself to electoral democracy. Pakistan needs its George Washington. Unfortunately it only has its Pervez Musharraf.”
Pakistani Spectator: Angry crowds in Rawalpindi are burning shops and vehicles and shouting slogans. Bhutto’s husband and two daughters have left Pakistan for Dubai.
Classical Values: “It not only does not bode well for democracy in Pakistan, but by highlighting the growing instability of a nuclear power, it’s a reminder that isolationism — whether of the Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, or Dennis Kucinich varieties — is not a great idea.”
Michelle Malkin: “They tried and failed when she returned to Pakistan in October. They tried and failed with a baby suicide bomber. Yesterday, they stopped a 15-year-old with a bomb packed full of nails trying to kill her. Today, they succeeded. Dammit, dammit, dammit”
The Pakistan Policy Blog: Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated in Rawalpindi on October 16, 1951. Bhutto’s father was also hung in Rawalpindi in 1979. Ms. Bhutto joins the list of assassinated family members: her brother Shahnawaz died from poisoning in France in 1985 and her other brother Murtaza was shot to death by police at close range in 1996.
Donklephant: “Well Pakistan, this is your chance. You can see what people will do to stop a more democratic government from gaining a foothold. Will you let this deter you or will you push towards a more just and fair republic?”
Getty Images: Graphic photos of the attack
MSNBC: “Bhutto’s supporters at the hospital began chanting “Dog, Musharraf, dog…” Some of them smashed the glass door at the main entrance of the emergency unit, others burst into tears.”
Reuters: “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,’ said police officer Mohammad Shahid.”
CNN: Media reports quote her husband saying she suffered a bullet wound to the neck in the attack.
December 27th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Two threads about democracy in Pakistan and only 7 responses between them. An I made three of them. Laa-di-dah.
December 27th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
i made two - Anorak needs to liven up. A great woman is murdered
December 27th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Too true Anorak, too true. I have even commented that the McCann board is trivial compared to this sad obliteration of Pakistan’s best international political hope, but there are too many to-the-second-timings and *extra 3-year-olds* to discuss. I’m as guilty as anyone on the McCann boards, if I have any time to spare I will trawl them for cluelets till my ears begin to bleed, but I think that there are posters on the other boards who surely mind about this? More people seem prepared to comment on AbiAnothterToplessModel’s tit count than this story. But, again, Annie Hall’s “La-dee-dah” because it’s apparently not worth a thought, let alone a key-stroke.
December 27th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I would suggest that Benazir Bhutto knew very well what her likely fate was, and walked to meet it anyway.
That sort of cold-blooded courage is vanishingly rare in a world which is in desperate need of it.
December 27th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Courage - she had it
December 27th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
chenier
Isn’t that the most applauded action of the true politician? To walk towards certain danger to say out loud that there is an alternative to the established norm? She knew, full well, especially after the attempt on her life in October and for many years before that, that she would be a target, but she has been in our time one of the few politicians in a dangerous political world to stand there time and time again to challenge the existing political structure and offer herself as an alternative (including the target of assassination.)
December 27th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Actually, I think very few people have that kind of courage, and even fewer are politicians. It is, as I said, vanishingly rare.
For her family it’s a dreadful personal loss, but the question we are left with is the full blown nightmare of a state with nuclear weapons which has, over the years, shown little inclination to tackle the rise of fundamentalism.
And no, I’m not talking about the United States, though if the cap fits…
Bush’s attempt to cultivate Benazir came very late in the day, and it doesn’t look as if there is anyone waiting in the wings.
But in the short term, at least, we can pay our respects to the memory of a woman who could so easily have lived out the privileged life of a wealthy socialite and chose instead to try and bring hope to people who lived in awful deprivation…
December 27th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Who dunnit?
December 27th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Sadly, the UK news has focussed on her being left un-protected to such an attack and several journalists have spent most of the day interviewing people who may or may not be able to say that her personal protection was inadequate today - clearly her personal protection today did not prevent her being killled by our UK mid afternoon. If there was one thing that Benazir Bhutto was sure of every time she made a public appearance it was her risk of assassination, and in the weeks since she was released from house-arrest, she knew that she was open from any and all sides open to assassination, because betrayal must have been part of her day-to-day diary-management - she just had to trust the people she was working with and sadly, today we found out that they just weren’t good enough to keep her alive. She is gone and tomorrow everyone who is in the least bit interested in Pakistan politics ought to research it as closely as they can, because her death means that a huge obsticle in the parliamentary debate against the Pakistanti international weapons alliance has just been torn apart by a bullet.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
9
Anorak Says:
December 27th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Who dunnit?
——————————————–
Well, according to the Guardian there is a very, very long list.
It’s easy to say that her security should have done a better job, but the reality is that if someone is prepared to die in the attempt to kill you then, unless you cut yourself off almost completely from other human beings, you will be killed.
Sooner or later.
I think she knew that perfectly well and had hoped that it would be later…
December 28th, 2007 at 3:39 am
I Think this is really sad. im only 15 and i really am sad. i feel so sorry for her. she was a role model. and i feel sorry for her family nad her background history was really bad aswell. what they did to her father. and now its happened to her. why are there nasty people in this world. she was a sucessfull woman. The people who did it surely should feel ashamed of theirselves and should be punished. i heard on the news that were the scene accoured they have staarted to clean it up and they have washed the blood away, why have they done that for when they could use that as proof and evidence and it would of helped them for forensic tests. REST IN PIECE
December 28th, 2007 at 9:19 am
The future looks scary for the whole world right now. Instability, Al Quaeda and and atomic weapons are a deadly combination.
Frederick Forsyth wrote an insightful feature in the Express today that is well worth a read (page 4 if you’re sneaking into the newsagents for a free read)
I can see this impacting on all of this.
Meanwhile there are her two daughters…… so sad.