Smoke rise from the vehicles set on fire by angry protesters after killing (more…)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan’s government asserted Friday that al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and offered the transcript of a conversation as proof. Hundreds of thousands mobbed her funeral as the army tried to quell rioting across the nation that left 27 dead.By Entwist.com (more…)

Bhutto Assassination Video - Here are pictures and video clips of the assassination of Pakistani presidential candidate Benazir Bhutto, killed by an Al-Qaeda backed gunman who then blew himself up in an explosion that killed twenty Bhutto supporters.

Security forces were on high alert after a warning from Pakistan’s Interior Ministry that Al-Qaeda had targeted multiple politicians and judges, but were unable to prevent the Benazir Bhutto assassination seen in video below.

The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, 8 miles south of Islamabad. She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto’s security adviser.

Sardar Qamar Hayyat, a leader from Bhutto’s party, said he was standing about 10 yard away from her vehicle at the time of the attack.

“She was inside the vehicle and was coming out from the gate after addressing the rally when some of the youths started chanting slogans in her favor. Then I saw a smiling Bhutto emerging from the vehicle’s roof and responding to their slogans,” he said.

“Then I saw a thin, young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away,” he added.

Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery. She died about an hour after the attack.

A doctor on the team that treated her said she had a bullet in the back of the neck that damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head. Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest.

She was given open heart massage, but the main cause of death was damage to her spinal cord, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

The decision to kill Bhutto, who was the leader of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October.

Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto.

Bhutto is seen in this video addressing a pre-election rally on Thursday in the garrison town of Rawalpindi just moments before the assassination and the bomb went off.

Bhutto had come to Rawalpindi in Pakistan’s volatile North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in a campaign stop where she had talked about a war against terrorism and al-Qaeda.Video of Bhutto Assassination

From Spanish news coverage. The Bhutto assassination happens just after her vehicle goes past a couple of trees about two minutes in, then all hell breaks loose.Bhutto Assassination Video - Raw footage just after blast
U.S. officials issued a strangely tepid response to Bhutto’s assassination.“Certainly, we condemn the attack on this rally. It demonstrates that there are still those in Pakistan who want to subvert reconciliation and efforts to advance democracy,” said deputy U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

Meanwhile, riots broke out across Pakistan as Bhutto’s supporters accused US ally Musharraf of complicity in her death.

GARHI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan - Hundreds of thousands of mourners thronged the mausoleum of Pakistan’s most famous political dynasty in an outpouring of emotion for Benazir Bhutto. The government said al-Qaida and the Taliban were responsible for her death, claiming it intercepted an al-Qaida leader’s message of congratulation for the assassination.

By Enttwist.com
 
But many of Bhutto’s furious supporters blamed President Pervez Musharraf’s government for the shooting and bombing attack on the former prime minister, Musharraf’s most powerful opponent. They rampaged through several cities in violence that left at least 23 dead less than two weeks before crucial parliamentary elections.

“We have the evidence that al-Qaida and Taliban were behind the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto,” Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said.

Thursday’s attack on Bhutto plunged Pakistan into turmoil and badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed nation, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said that on Friday, the government recorded an “intelligence intercept” in which militant leader Baitullah Mehsud “congratulated his people for carrying out this cowardly act.”

Cheema described Mehsud as an “al-Qaida leader” who was also behind the Karachi bomb blast in October against Bhutto that killed more than 140 people. He also announced the formation of two inquiries into Bhutto’s death, one to be carried out by a high court judge and another by security forces.

Bhutto was killed Thursday when a suicide attacker shot at her and then blew himself up as she left a rally in Rawalpindi. Authorities initially said she died from bullet wounds, and a surgeon who treated her said she died from the impact of shrapnel on her skull.

But Cheema said she was killed when she tried to duck back into the vehicle, and the shock waves from the blast smashed her head into a lever attached to the sunroof, fracturing her skull, he said.

Cheema said Pakistani security forces would hunt down those responsible for her death: “They will definitely be brought to justice.”

He said other senior politicians were also under threat of militant attack, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who promised to boycott parliamentary elections on Jan. 8 in response to Bhutto’s assassination.

Cheema showed a videotape of the attack, with Bhutto waving, smiling and chatting with supporters from the sunroof as her car sat unmoving on the street outside the rally. Three gunshots rang out, the camera appeared to fall, and the tape ended.

On Friday, Bhutto’s supporters ransacked banks, waged shootouts with police and burned trains and stations in a spasm of violence less than two weeks before parliamentary elections.

Soldiers patrolled the streets of the southern cities of Hyderabad and Karachi, witnesses said. At least 23 people were killed in unrest, said Ghulam Mohammed Mohtaram, home secretary for Sindh province.

Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said the government had no immediate plans to postpone Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, despite the growing chaos and a top opposition leader’s decision to boycott the poll.

“Right now the elections stand where they were,” he told a news conference. “We will consult all the political parties to take any decision about it.”

Mourners traveled to Garhi Khuda Bakhsh by tractor, bus, car and jeep. Many crammed inside the mausoleum and threw petals on the coffin. Women beat their heads and chests in grief.

“As long as the moon and sun are alive, so is the name of Bhutto,” they chanted.

An Islamic cleric led mourners in prayers and Bhutto’s son, Bilawal, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, helped lower the coffin beside the grave of her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also a popular former prime minister who met a violent death. Thousands of supporters then filed in to shovel dirt onto the grave.

Some mourners angrily blamed Musharraf, the former army chief, for Bhutto’s death, shouting “General, killer!” “Army, killer.”

The death of the 54-year-old Bhutto left her party without a clear successor. Her husband, who was freed in December 2004 after eight years in detention on graft charges, is one contender, although he lacks the cachet of a blood relative.

“I don’t know what will happen to the country now,” said Nazakat Soomro, 32.

A mob in Karachi looted at least three banks and set them on fire, and engaged in a shootout with police that left three officers wounded, police said.

About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas. In the capital, Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tires in a commercial district.

Paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live fire against rioters in southern Pakistan, said Maj. Asad Ali, the rangers’ spokesman.

“We have orders to shoot on sight,” he said.

Earlier, mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Bhutto’s Sindh province, forcing the suspension of all train service between the city of Karachi and the eastern Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railroad official.

The rioters uprooted one section of the track leading to India, he said.

About 4,000 Bhutto supporters rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar and several hundred ransacked the empty office of the main pro-Musharraf party, burning furniture and stationery.

Protesters shouted “Musharraf dog” and “Bhutto was alive yesterday, Bhutto is alive today.” Dozens of police in riot gear followed the protesters but did not intervene.

In other violence, a roadside bomb killed a local leader from the ruling party and six of his associates as they drove through Swat in northwestern Pakistan, where troops have been fighting followers of a pro-Taliban cleric in recent months, said Mohib Ullah, a local police official.

Many cities were nearly deserted as businesses closed and public transportation came to a halt at the start of three days of national mourning for Bhutto.

“The repercussions of her murder will continue to unfold for months, even years,” read a mournful editorial in the Dawn newspaper. “What is clear is that Pakistan’s political landscape will never be the same, having lost one of its finest daughters.”

Dr. Mussadiq Khan, a surgeon who treated Bhutto, said Friday that she died from shrapnel that hit her on the right side of the skull. Bhutto had no heartbeat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital and doctors failed to resuscitate her, he said.

Soomro, the prime minister, told the Cabinet on Friday that Bhutto’s husband did not allow an autopsy, according to a government statement.

After the killing, Sharif, another former premier and leader of a rival opposition party, announced his party would boycott the elections.

“I am worried about the country, about the people. Nobody is secure, there is total insecurity,” Sharif said.

Opposition politician and former cricket star Imran Khan blamed Musharraf for Bhutto’s death, saying he did not give her proper security. Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, India, where he was on a private visit, he called on the president to resign and for an independent judicial probe into her death.

Bhutto, whose party has long been popular among Pakistan’s legions of poor, served two terms as prime minister between 1988 and 1996. Both elected governments were toppled amid accusations of corruption and mismanagement, but she was respected in the West for her liberal outlook and determination to combat Islamic extremism.

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SUKKUR: Dead body of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is being taken to Garhi Khuda Bakhsh for burial.
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