Many people have expressed shock this morning at the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan and opponent of President Pervez Musharraf -- and a target of Islamist extremists.
At the risk of sounding callous, I'm not sure why anyone should be shocked. Given the fanaticism of her enemies and their complete disregard for human life, one should have seen this morning's tragedy in Rawalpindi as entirely predictable. In October, they tried to kill her within hours of her return to Pakistan.
A major question for me is how did her assassin manage to get close enough to shoot her in the neck and chest before detonating his or her bomb? (keep in mind the facts are in flux at this point)*
* Update, from the NYT:
The exact circumstances surrounding the assassination were still unclear. Senior officials in Ms. Bhutto’s party said she was leaving after addressing the rally and stood up in her car, putting her head through a window in the roof to wave at the crowd when she was hit in the head by a sniper in a nearby building. Witnesses said that they heard two or three shots in total, and that the car moved on for another 50 yards before a suicide attacker blew himself up.
Other witnesses described a single assassin opening fire on Ms. Bhutto and her entourage, hitting her at least once in the neck and once in the chest, before blowing himself up. Dr. Abbas Hayat, a professor of pathology at Rawalpindi General Hospital where Ms. Bhutto was taken, said that doctors tried to revive her for 35 minutes but that she had shrapnel wounds and head injuries and was in heart failure. He said he could not confirm whether she had bullet injuries.
Who is responsible for that major breakdown in security?
Sadly, it could partly be Bhutto herself. Here's Eric Margolis, author and acquaintance of Bhutto, speaking on CTV Newsnet:
"She said she had to be with her people, she had to be seen. It was part of her political ethos to mix with the crowds."
Margolis said he wasn't shocked by what happened.
There are reports on the web that al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the killing, but I haven't seen any MSM outlet go with that angle yet.
The Guardian had this to say about Bhutto's enemies within Pakistan as she campaigned in the election scheduled for Jan. 8:
Bhutto ... was convinced that a shadowy cabal of retired army officers and Islamist militant sympathisers was behind the (Oct. 18) strike ...
An analysis by India-based Rediff News columnist B. Rahman is along those lines. Here is an excerpt:
All the jihadi organisations were opposed to her coming to power firstly because she was a woman and, secondly, because of her statements that she would allow US troops to hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistani territory and let the International Atomic Energy Agency interrogate nuclear scientist A Q Khan.
As recently as December 26, after her visit to Peshawar where there were some explosions coinciding with her visit, she had expressed dissatisfaction with her security arrangements. She complained that the electronic jammers issued to her staff for protection against remote-control devices were faulty.
Her repeated pleas to seek the help of Western intelligence agencies for an investigation into the blast at Karachi on October 18, where she narrowly escaped, and to let her hire private security guards from the West, were turned down by Musharraf.
Some resources:
BBC: Benazir Bhutto killed in attack (main news story)
BBC: Pakistan - The balance of forces (the main actors on Pakistan's political stage)
BBC: A life in pictures
BBC: Obituary
Pakistan's Dawn newspaper has this Benazir Bhutto page.