Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan and then-leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party, had been campaigning ahead of elections scheduled for January 2008. Shots were fired at her after a political rally at Liaqat National Bagh, and a suicide bomb was detonated immediately following the shooting. She was declared dead at 18:16 local time (13:16 UTC), at Rawalpindi General Hospital. Twenty-three other people were killed by the bombing. Bhutto had previously survived a similar attempt on her life in Karachi (the 2007 Karsaz bombing) that killed at least 180 people, after her return from exile two months earlier. Following her assassination, the Election Commission of Pakistan postponed the general elections by a month, which Bhutto's party later won.

Though early reports indicated that she had been hit by shrapnel or the gunshots, the Pakistani Interior Ministry initially stated that Bhutto died of a skull fracture sustained when the force of the explosion caused her head to strike the sunroof of the vehicle. Bhutto's aides rejected this version of the story, and argued instead that she suffered two gunshots before the bomb detonation. The Interior Ministry subsequently backtracked from its previous claim. In May 2007, Bhutto had asked for additional protection from private security contractors Blackwater and ArmorGroup. An investigation of the assassination by the United Nations stated that "Ms. Bhutto's assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken."