Bhutto killed in bomb attack

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, her party said.

”She has been martyred,” said party official Rehman Malik.

Ms Bhutto, 54, died in hospital in Rawalpindi. Ary-One Television said she had been shot in the head. Police said a suicide bomber fired shots at Bhutto as she was leaving the rally venue in a park before blowing himself up. “The man first fired at Bhutto’s vehicle. She ducked and then he blew himself up,” said police officer Mohammad Shahid. Police said 16 people had been killed in the blast.

Earlier, party officials said Bhutto was safe. A Reuters witness said he saw bodies on a road as well as a mutilated human head. A suicide bomber killed nearly 150 people in an attack on Bhutto on Oct. 18 as she paraded through the southern city of Karachi after returning home from eight years in self-imposed exile.

Her killing triggered international condemnation and some safe-haven buying of gold, with futures in the commodity rallying to a one-month high.

Benazir Bhutto

‘I did not come this far in life to be intimidated by suicide bombers,’ Bhutto wrote in the Financial Times

The US State Department condemned the attack as undermining national reconciliation in Pakistan.

A top Russian diplomat said the killing of Bhutto could trigger a wave of terror in Pakistan. “An act of terror is a bad sign,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, Russia’s most senior Asia diplomat, told Itar-Tass news agency. “We hereby offer our condolences. This will for certain trigger a wave of terrorism.”

Gold and government bonds rose while US stock futures fell on the news.

Gold rallied to a one-month high, reaching $834.70 an ounce. Analysts said the shock of the Bhutto news triggered a classic capital flight to assets which are considered as safe havens in times of geopolitical stress.