Breaking: Pakistan Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto Murdered..Bush Reacts

Was set for publication on January 6, 2008…

Bush reacts:
Video here

THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I extend our deepest condolences to the family of Benazir Bhutto, to her friends, to her supporters. We send our condolences to the families of the others who were killed in today’s violence. And we send our condolences to all the people of Pakistan on this tragic occasion.
The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice. Mrs. Bhutto served her nation twice as Prime Minister and she knew that her return to Pakistan earlier this year put her life at risk. Yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country.
We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism. We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto’s memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.

The World Reacts
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It was not a suicide attack, it was murder. ALLAHPUNDIT:

Fox News says she was shot twice in the neck before the bomb went off, so obviously it was a coordinated attack. The first line of this post, from the last time she was attacked, is worth considering. Bhutto herself blamed jihadis for that one but her husband accused the intelligence services of complicity. Given Musharraf’s unpopularity and antipathy to Bhutto, a lot of fingers are going to be pointing at him. God only knows how destabilizing this will prove to be.

Graphic images

Michelle has a good roundup and offers a rundown from October of some of Bhutto’s enemies:

• Taliban fighters and other Islamic extremists who resent a woman who wants to keep religion out of government and who supports the U.S. war on terror. Bhutto inflamed the militants recently when she said she might allow U.S. forces onto Pakistani soil to hunt Taliban and al-Qaeda forces hiding along the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border. The Taliban threatened to greet her with suicide bombers — but denied responsibility for the bloodshed in Karachi.

• Militant supporters of her estranged brother Murtaza, who was gunned down by police in 1996 during Benazir’s second term as prime minister. Murtaza had emerged as a key critic of her regime and head of an armed left-wing Peoples Party splinter group. “He had die-hard supporters who blame her for his death,” Sehgal says.

• Members of the military establishment who undermined her two governments and who three decades ago overthrew and executed her father, the charismatic Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Thanks to Memeorandum for the links to more coverage at:
CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT’s and ABC

Bloggers:
House of Eratosthenes
Benazir Bhutto Killed in Pakistan : The Sundries Shack
Bhutto Assassinated » Freedom Folks
JammieWearingFool
Tel-Chai Nation
Don Surber » Blog Archive » Bhutto assassinated
Ed Driscoll.com
Flopping Aces