Two shots fired, and then a bomb exploded at a rally held by former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. 

It is not yet clear whether Bhutto died from the gun shots or shrapnel from the suicide bomber.

This marks the second assassination attempt on Bhutto.  In October, extremists attacked her motorcade killing 136 people.

Bhutto served as Pakistani prime minister from 1988-90, and became the first woman to lead an Islamic nation as prime minister.

The assassination comes less than two weeks after current president Pervez Musharraf lifted an emergency declaration he said was necessary to secure his country from terrorists.

Mourners gathered at the hospital where Bhutto died, and officials fear rioting may begin.

President Bush said those responsible “must be brought to justice” and praised Bhutto as a woman who had “fought the forces of terror.” He said: “She refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country.”

Pakistan remains one of our allies in the war in Afghanistan and in the region–at least officially.  Over the last few months the country has seemed to be falling apart.   This can be attributed to both Musharraf’s borderline dictatorship and displaced extremists crossing over from Afghanistan.

Basically this blog entry comes down to the whole region being a giant clusterfuck.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 11:39 by Jake and is filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.