Harvard- and Oxford-educated Benazir Bhutto, who twice served Pakistan as its Prime Minister, was assassinated yesterday by Taliban and al Qaeda supporters in a spectacularly violent act in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. This act threw the country into a spasm of violence on the eve of national elections planned for January 8th. The agony of Pakistan splattered across the small screen was palpable, as was the transformation of Bhutto into a martyr for democracy in the world’s media. That was reflected in comments from leaders in the US, France, India, Russia and even Iran. The lurking danger in Pakistan is that the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was also the subject of a failed assassination attempt, has some skeletons in his closet. He tried to befriend bin Laden as a means of co-opting Al Qaeda. Further, he is allied with Islamist elements in the Pakistani government intelligence service, the ISI, which might facilitate a Taliban-like takeover. It was the late Ms. Bhutto who in recent correspondence accused the ISI of trying to assassinate her.
The prospect of a Taliban-like takeover is daunting. Pakistan is acknowledged to have 60 nuclear heads, developed by the infamous Dr. A.Q. Khan, presently under house arrest. He also facilitated transfer of key nuclear technology to Iran from Pakistan. The fear is that the only bastion of opposition to the Islamists may collapse the largely secular Army of Pakistan. Without that bastion, the country might become another Islamic Republic akin to that in Shia-dominated Iran. Read more ...
Source: Family Security Matters
H/T: The Intelligence Summit
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