Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was shot by her attacker before he blew himself up in a suicide bomb attack Thursday outside a campaign rally, police said Thursday.
Bhutto, 54, died in a hospital after a suspected suicide rocked her election rally at the Liaquat Bagh park in Rawalpindi, some 30 km south from Islamabad.
The latest reports from the state-run PTV said at least ten people were killed in the blast.
However, a private TV, ARJ, reported that at least 20 were killed and another 42 were injured in the blast....
The shooting before the bombing is also reported by the Middle East Times.
Jeremy Page at the Times (UK) notes:
...two militant warlords based in Pakistan's lawless northwestern areas, near the border with Afghanistan, had threatened to kill her on her return.
One was Baitullah Mehsud, a top commander fighting the Pakistani army in the tribal region of South Waziristan. He has close ties to al Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban.
The other was Haji Omar, the “amir” or leader of the Pakistani Taleban, who is also from South Waziristan and fought against the Soviets with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan....
...Analysts say that President Musharraf himself is unlikely to have ordered her assassination, but that elements of the army and intelligence service would have stood to lose money and power if she had become Prime Minister.
The ISI, in particular, includes some Islamists who became radicalised while running the American-funded campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan and remained fiercely opposed to Ms Bhutto on principle.
Saudi Arabia, which has strong influence in Pakistan, is also thought to frown on Ms Bhutto as being too secular and Westernised and to favour Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister.
And there is the other theory running around that Bhutto may have been more receptive to the notion of "giving up" both AQ Khan and Omar Sheikh ... something to which Mushie has been adamantly opposed.
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