Adil Najam
News is just breaking that former Prime Minister and head of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi in a terrorist attack.
She was gunned down by an assassin who then blew himself up in a suicide attack. This happened at the end of her rally in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi; the same place where Liaqat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister was assassinated. Major news networks are now reporting that following bomb blasts at Benazir Bhutto’s rally in Rawalpindi, shots were fired directly targeting her. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari says that one of these shots hit her in the neck and killed her.
According to early BBC reports:
Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack, a military spokesman has announced on TV. Earlier reports said Ms Bhutto had only been injured and taken to hospital.
Ms Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally in the town of Rawalpindi when the bomb went off. At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured. Ms Bhutto had twice been the country’s prime minister. She was campaigning ahead of elections due in January.
‘She expired’
The explosion occurred close to an entrance gate of the park in Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had been speaking. Benazir Bhutto had been addressing rallies in many parts of Pakistan
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar initially said that Ms Bhutto was safe. But later he told the BBC that Ms Bhutto had died. Another member of the PPP, Wasif Ali Khan, told the Associated Press news agency from the Rawalpindi General Hospital: “At 6:16 pm (1316 GMT) she expired.”
I, like most Pakistanis, am still too numb with shock and grief to think coherently about what has happened or what the implications of this are for the country and for the world. But this I know, whether you agreed with her political positions or not you cannot but be in shock. Even as I type these lines I am literally shaking. Hers was a tragic life story. So tragic that had it not been real no one would have believed it.
At this point all sorts of thoughts float through the politics of this. Why did this happen? Why was it not stopped? What could have been done to stop this senseless murder? Maybe she should not have come back? Who did this? What will this mean for the elections? What will this mean for the PPP? What will this mean for Gen. Musharraf? What will this mean for Pakistan? But all of these are paled by thoughts about Benazir as a person. The woman. The wife. The mother. The human being. What about her?
I have not always agreed with her politically but there was always a respect for her political courage. I had met her many times, first as a journalist covering her when she had just returned to Pakistan in the Zia era and before she became Prime Minister. Later a number of times in her two stints as Prime Minister and thena few times during her exile. In that last period she toll to referring to me as “Professor sahib” and some of our exchanges were more candid (at least on my part) than they had been earlier.
At a human level this is a tragedy like no other. Only a few days ago I was mentioning to someone that the single most tragic person in all of Pakistan – maybe all the world – is Nusrat Bhutto. Benazir’s mother. Think about it. Her husband, killed. One son alledgedly poisoned. Another son assassinated. Daughter rises to be Prime Minister twice, but jailed, exiled, and finally gunned down.
Today, in shock, I can think only of Benazir Bhutto the human being. Tomorrow, maybe, I will think of politics.
I think this event will hasten the fall of Musharraf and would reach his end, natural or otherwise.
ye to hona hi tha…
jo doosron ke gharon mein aag lagate hein, ek din unke gharon mein bhi aag lagti hai…
may be with we pakistans will learn terrorism is evil for all.. we must be more peaceful and loving…
pakistan jindabad!!
All of you who think USA is behind her death. I do not think so I think USA is Behind her death because USA wanted her to rule Pakistan and many in Pakistan did not like that. Anyone running for elections in Pakistan must learn this if you are running for office in Pakistan , keep low profile when it comes to west , No need to tell people she got call from UK or USA and or from India. Anyways why in America media thinks this is a blow to USA?
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan jolted the race for the White House on Thursday, sending candidates in both parties scrambling for political advantage while condemning the attack.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who have made experience a cornerstone of their campaigns, said the murder was proof of a need for a president who is ready to take command.
“I know from my lifetime of experience you have to be prepared for whatever might happen, and that’s particularly true today,” Clinton said in an Associated Press interview while campaigning in Iowa.
She declined to be drawn into a discussion about the impact on a leading rival, Barack Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois who has stressed a need for change in Washington.
McCain was not so reticent about comparing his experience with that of other GOP contenders.
“My theme has been throughout this campaign that I’m the one with the experience, the knowledge and the judgment. So perhaps it may serve to enhance those credentials to make people understand that I’ve been to Pakistan, I know Musharraf, I can pick up the phone and call him. I knew Benazir Bhutto.”
Asked later by reporters about his rivals, he said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee doesn’t have “the same experience and background on national security issues that I do.”
He said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had done a great job with a “post-crisis situation” after terrorists brought down the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. McCain added, “I’m not saying he is without credentials. I’m saying I am the one with the most credentials and the most experience and the most judgment.”
Giuliani issued a statement that said the assassination was further evidence that the United States needs to increase its efforts against terrorism – and he began running an a new TV ad focusing on the Sept. 11 attacks.
McCain made no mention of another leading Republican rival, Mitt Romney. But the former Massachusetts governor was eager to join the debate.
“If the answer for leading the country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the State Department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who spent all their life in foreign policy,” he said while campaigning in New Hampshire.
Instead, he said, what is needed is a chief executive with leadership and the ability to assemble “a great team of people to be able to guide and direct them to understand what decision has to be made.”
The assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister occurred one week before the Iowa caucuses, the first test of the 2008 race for the White House, and provided a reminder of the importance of national security in an era of terrorism.
After several months of near-constant campaign focus on the war in Iraq, foreign policy had taken on a less pronounced role in recent months. With violence in the war receding, at least for the present, some public opinion polls have shown more people expressing concern about the economy than events overseas.
In Iowa, officials disclosed that internal polling by the top three Democratic campaigns showed Clinton, Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in a virtual dead heat. Edwards had slight momentum going into Christmas, said these officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity while discussing confidential information.
Among Republicans, private as well as public polls in Iowa show Huckabee with the lead over Romney, who had been the front-runner in the state for months. In New Hampshire, site of a primary five days after Iowa votes, Romney polls narrowly ahead of McCain, who has made gains in recent weeks as Giuliani and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson have faded.
Bhutto, an opposition leader in Pakistan, was assassinated Thursday by an attacker who shot her after a campaign rally and then blew himself up. The death triggered further unrest in the nuclear-armed nation, a key ally of the United States in the war on terror.
Alone among the White House contenders, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson called on President Bush to pressure Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to step aside in favor of a coalition government.
“Until this happens, we should suspend military aid to the Pakistani government,” he said in a statement. “Free and fair elections must also be held as soon as possible,” added Richardson, who served as ambassador to the United Nations for a portion of the Clinton administration.
Obama said he had asked the administration for intelligence briefings on a dicey situation.
In a criticism of current policy, he said the war in Iraq had diverted troops and other resources needed to track down al-Qaida terrorists who move between Afghanistan and Pakistan. “I’ve been saying for some time that we’ve got a very big problem there,” he said.
Edwards declined to endorse Richardson’s idea on Musharraf, saying “I don’t think now is the time to talk about things like that.” He later talked with the Pakistani president and said he urged him to “continue on the path to democratization, to allow international investigators to come in to determine what happened.”
Said Huckabee: “The terrible violence surrounding Pakistan’s upcoming election stands in stark contrast to the peaceful transition of power that we embrace in our country through our Constitution. On this sad day, we are reminded that while our democracy has flaws, it stands as a shining beacon of hope for nations and people around the world who seek peace and opportunity through self-government.”
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters in Iowa that he had twice this past fall urged Musharraf “to provide better security for Ms. Bhutto and other political leaders. … The failure to protect Ms. Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the government and security services that must be answered.”
I, an American woman, have been following her since her father was executed and she first stepped up on the world stage. My deepest condolences to her family and to her country for the stilling of her voice… but not her spirit.
May Allah have mercy on her soul. This is a horrible tragedy.