Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed.

Fox News is reporting:

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a homicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally.

Bhutto was shot in the neck and chest as she was entering her vehicle, and then the bomber blew himself up, FOX News has confirmed.

The former prime minister died in Rawalpindi General Hospital, where she had been rushed to surgery. She was 54.

“At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at the hospital.

Her supporters at the hospital began chanting “Dog, Musharraf, dog,” referring to Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf.

Some of them smashed the glass door at the main entrance of the emergency unit, others burst into tears. Top party leaders were outside the hospital, crying.

One man with a flag of Pakistan People’s Party tied around his head was beating his chest.

Sen. Babar Awan, Bhutto’s lawyer, said, “The surgeons confirmed that she has been martyred.”

*Update* In related news to this mornings assassination of the former Prime
Minister.

Jihad Watch is reporting the following:

US Special Forces to increase presence in Pakistan — Al-Qaeda’s new central battlefield

US Special Forces are to increase their presence in Pakistan amid assessments that the country is to become the central battlefield for al-Qaida as it is driven from Iraq.
“Pakistan should be carefully watched because it could prove to be a significant flashpoint in the coming year,” US think tank Strategic Forecasting said in an evaluation of al-Qaida’s tactics as the Islamist group comes under mounting pressure in Iraq.

This is a development which will become ever more necessary if we are to see peace in this area of the world. The events of today perhaps will speed the deployment of these forces and perhaps help keep some sanity in a country which will no doubt be in terrible turmoil in the coming months.