The assassination of Benazir Bhutto raises a myriad of questions. It's early days yet - in fact the dastardly act only happened some hours ago - but The Independent seeks to address the questions and issues:
"The killing has dealt a severe blow to the fragile hopes of an orderly transition to democracy in Pakistan and has left the country facing a dangerous future. Despite the repression which followed the imposition of the state of emergency by President Pervez Musharraf, the West had accepted his protestations that "free and fair" elections were back on track. Indeed Mr Musharraf as president, with Ms Bhutto as prime minister, was the ideal combination sought by the US and Britain.
The murder in Rawalpindi, and the anger it has unleashed, has led some political leaders, such as Riaz Malik of the opposition Pakistan Movement for Justice Party (Tehreeke-insaf) to warn of civil war. Even if this is too alarmist, and there is no outbreak of full-scale fighting, there will be unease among the international community at the prospect of upheaval in a nuclear-armed state with militant Islamist groups waiting in the wings."
Read on, here, for a further analysis.
Needless to say Al Quaeda is strongly suspected of being behind the assassination, as Reuters reports:
"Al Qaeda is the chief suspect in the murder of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, standing to gain by preserving its remote stronghold, undermining President Pervez Musharraf and destabilizing the country, U.S. government and private analysts said.
The militant group, which has rebuilt its command structure on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was blamed for a previous attempt on Bhutto and it has denounced her as an instrument of U.S. policy in Pakistan.
Bush administration officials said it was too early to identify a clear suspect in Thursday's assassination.
But one U.S. official said: "There are a number of extremist groups within Pakistan that could have carried out the attack ... Al Qaeda has got to be one of the groups at the top of this list."
"The killing has dealt a severe blow to the fragile hopes of an orderly transition to democracy in Pakistan and has left the country facing a dangerous future. Despite the repression which followed the imposition of the state of emergency by President Pervez Musharraf, the West had accepted his protestations that "free and fair" elections were back on track. Indeed Mr Musharraf as president, with Ms Bhutto as prime minister, was the ideal combination sought by the US and Britain.
The murder in Rawalpindi, and the anger it has unleashed, has led some political leaders, such as Riaz Malik of the opposition Pakistan Movement for Justice Party (Tehreeke-insaf) to warn of civil war. Even if this is too alarmist, and there is no outbreak of full-scale fighting, there will be unease among the international community at the prospect of upheaval in a nuclear-armed state with militant Islamist groups waiting in the wings."
Read on, here, for a further analysis.
Needless to say Al Quaeda is strongly suspected of being behind the assassination, as Reuters reports:
"Al Qaeda is the chief suspect in the murder of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, standing to gain by preserving its remote stronghold, undermining President Pervez Musharraf and destabilizing the country, U.S. government and private analysts said.
The militant group, which has rebuilt its command structure on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was blamed for a previous attempt on Bhutto and it has denounced her as an instrument of U.S. policy in Pakistan.
Bush administration officials said it was too early to identify a clear suspect in Thursday's assassination.
But one U.S. official said: "There are a number of extremist groups within Pakistan that could have carried out the attack ... Al Qaeda has got to be one of the groups at the top of this list."
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