PAKISTAN:Benazir Bhutto was attacked as she left Liaqat Bagh, a public park in Rawalpindi where she addressed thousands of supporters at an election rally yesterday afternoon. Officials said she was driving out of the park, standing inside her bulletproof vehicle and waving to supporters, with the top half of her body protruding from the sunroof, when the killer struck.
Several gunshots rang out and Bhutto crumpled into the vehicle. Seconds later a huge blast rocked the vehicle, showering it with shrapnel. Rescuers found Bhutto lying in pool of blood on the back seat.
Senior party official Amin Fahim, who had been sitting beside her, said he heard "between three and five shots".
Sherry Rehman, who was travelling in the vehicle behind, said: "She fell back into the vehicle and everything was splattered with blood.
"I don't even know if she made it alive to the hospital." Some said Bhutto had been shot before the blast. Amir Qureshi, a bodyguard from Bhutto's youth wing who had been jogging alongside her car, said he heard two volleys of gunshots. She was shot first in the neck, then in the head, he said, speaking to the Guardian from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for leg wounds. "This is a black day not only for Pakistan but also the rest of the world," he said.
There were chaotic scenes of anger and grief at the Rawalpindi hospital where an unconscious Bhutto received emergency treatment. Thousands of supporters crushed through glass doors; some tried to break into the operating room. Outside some men wept and crumpled to the ground, others yelled "Musharraf is a murderer" or "Long Live Bhutto".
Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, also recently returned from exile, rushed to the hospital where he sat by Bhutto's body.
"Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death," he said later, his eyes at times filling with tears.
"Don't feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers."
For Washington, the enormity of Bhutto's death is almost incalculable. Her assassination yesterday robbed the White House of an important ally in Pakistan days before elections that were supposed to return the country to civilian rule and, Washington hoped, greater stability and a strengthened front against Islamist extremism.
"Not only does this upset the US hope or plan to have a Benazir Bhutto-Pervez Musharraf condominium on powersharing after the election, but it upsets the very prospect that the elections could go off as scheduled," said Daniel Markey, who until recently was the state department's main adviser on south Asia.
America's immediate priority will be to try to contain a violent backlash by Bhutto's supporters, who blame Musharraf for her assassination, fearing it could further destabilise Pakistan.
White House officials yesterday called on Pakistanis to remain calm and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, telephoned Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari to offer her government's condolences.
In a brief statement from his ranch at Crawford, Texas, president George Bush blamed Bhutto's assassination on the enemies of democracy in Pakistan. But he did not indicate whether he would press Pakistan to stick to January 8th as the date for elections or whether it would be left to Musharraf to dictate the pace of Pakistan's return to civilian rule.
"That is up to the people of Pakistan," a White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, told reporters.