Musharraf declares 3 days of national mourning

CBC News 

Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed Thursday in an apparent suicide attack at a campaign rally in which at least 20 others died.

Bhutto died around 6:16 p.m. local time (8:16 a.m. ET) at Rawalpindi General Hospital after undergoing emergency surgery for wounds sustained in the attack at the city's Liaqat Bagh park, her senior spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.

"We are in the hospital where her dead body is lying," Babar told CBC News in a telephone interview from Rawalpindi.

In a brief televised address, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf condemned the attack and announced three days of mourning for Bhutto.

Meanwhile, paramilitary forces were put on "red alert" across the country, Reuters reported.

"This cruelty is the work of those terrorists with whom we are fighting," Musharraf said.

Babar said Bhutto had just finished addressing the rally and was waving from the roof of a vehicle to the crowd of supporters gathered at the park's main gate when the bomber struck. 

Conflicting accounts have emerged over whether Bhutto was killed by the blast or by gunfire heard ahead of the explosion.

Rehman Malik, Bhutto's security adviser, told the Associated Press she was shot in the neck and chest before the attacker blew himself up.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene also counted about 20 bodies, including police, and could see many other wounded people.

Bhutto escaped an assassination attempt in October when twin explosions ripped through crowds in Karachi welcoming her home from eight years of exile. Nearly 150 people died in the attacks.

Hours after Thursday's attack, gunfire was heard ringing out in Bhutto's hometown, CBC producer Habiba Nosheen reported from Karachi, about 1,300 kilometres southwest of Islamabad.

"The roads have been closed off," Nosheen said. "People are staying inside their homes."

Upon hearing reports of her death, thousands of Bhutto's supporters in Rawalpindi gathered outside the hospital chanting "Dog, Musharraf, dog."

"I can see outside now the massive amounts of people," Babar said from inside the hospital.

Security requests ignored: adviser

The assassination drew immediate and widespread condemnation from world leaders and cast doubt over whether Pakistan's upcoming parliamentary elections would be held.

The Western-educated Bhutto enjoyed high popularity at home and abroad and was leading Pakistan's largest political party heading into the Jan. 8 vote.

Bhutto's chief rival, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, told the BBC her death was a tragedy for "the entire nation."

Questions were immediately raised about how a suicide bomber could get so close to Bhutto after previous attacks.

Many observers were left to speculate whether Musharraf's government or Pakistan's security forces were involved in the attack, said Tariq Amin-Khan, an assistant professor of politics and public administration at Toronto's Ryerson University.

"Security has been very lax," Amin-Khan told CBC News in a telephone interview from Karachi. "One could fault the government for what it has not done." 

Musharraf himself has been the target of numerous attacks blamed on Islamist militants, who have reported ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.

"I find it difficult to believe that Musharraf would be directly involved, but you can't put it past the security service agencies," Amin-Khan said.

Bhutto's security adviser also said the government had ignored requests for beefed-up security, including bomb-jammers, which can thwart signals sent to detonate explosives.

"We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment including jammers, but they paid no heed to our requests," Malik said.

Observers said Bhutto's death would spark fierce protests in a country where political bloodshed is common.

'You will see lots of riots'

"All of Pakistan is in danger now," said Ibrahim Daniyal, secretary of the Pakistan Peoples Party Canada's ad hoc committee. "You will see lots of riots … lots of blood."

The 54-year-old Bhutto, eldest daughter of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, served two terms as prime minister of Pakistan.

She went to the United States in 1969 to attend Radcliffe College in Massachusetts, then Harvard University and then to England where she studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford.

After her studies, she returned to Pakistan where her father was charged with conspiring to commit a political murder and executed in 1979.

Bhutto was placed under house arrest for five years shortly before her father's execution, and then went to Britain where she became leader-in-exile of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Coalition government

After Bhutto's return to Pakistan in 1988, the PPP won 39 per cent of the popular vote and she was sworn in as Pakistan's prime minister in a coalition government.

She was deposed 20 months later on allegations of corruption, but was re-elected again in 1993, only to be sacked in 1996 on similar charges.

Meanwhile Thursday, four people were killed during a gun battle between pro-government supporters and Sharif's backers at a rally outside Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

A spokesman for the party said Sharif was about two kilometres away when pro-government party supporters opened fire.

On Dec. 15, Musharraf ended a month-long state of emergency that saw crackdowns on opposition supporters, independent media and the purging of independent judges from the country's Supreme Court.

Musharraf came to power in 1999 in a bloodless coup that saw Sharif go into voluntary exile for eight years.