Category: History & Politics Key figures: Benazir Bhutto (victim); Baitullah Mehsud (accused mastermind); Pervez Musharraf (President of Pakistan); Asif Ali Zardari (Bhutto’s husband, PPP co-chair)
Summary
On December 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto — twice-former Prime Minister of Pakistan and leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — was assassinated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. She had returned to Pakistan in October 2007 after nearly nine years of self-imposed exile, following a negotiated amnesty deal with President Pervez Musharraf, and was campaigning ahead of general elections scheduled for January 2008.
The attack occurred after a political rally at Liaquat National Bagh. As Bhutto stood through the sunroof of her SUV to wave to supporters, gunshots were fired at her and a suicide bomb was immediately detonated alongside the vehicle. She was transported to Rawalpindi General Hospital and declared dead at 18:16 local time (13:16 UTC). Twenty-three other people were killed in the blast. A Scotland Yard investigation concluded in February 2008 that the force of the explosion slammed Bhutto’s head against a lever on the vehicle’s escape hatch, causing the fatal skull fracture; the PPP rejected this finding and demanded a United Nations inquiry, alleging a government cover-up.
Pakistani intelligence, the CIA, and Pakistan’s government quickly attributed the assassination to Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and an ally of al-Qaeda operating from South Waziristan. Mehsud denied involvement. Bhutto had been warned on the morning of the attack by the director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that an attempt on her life was planned that day. A UN commission appointed in 2009 concluded in its 2010 report that Pakistani officials had “failed profoundly” to provide Bhutto with adequate security and had subsequently impeded investigations into the attack.
Bhutto’s death triggered violent protests across Pakistan that left dozens more people dead and caused widespread damage to infrastructure. The government imposed emergency measures in several cities. The January 8 elections were postponed to February 18, 2008; the PPP, now co-chaired by Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari, won the largest share of seats and Zardari became President in September 2008.
Bhutto’s Life and Political Career
Benazir Bhutto was born June 21, 1953, in Karachi, to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who would become Pakistan’s Prime Minister (1973–1977) and President (1971–1973). She was educated at Radcliffe College (Harvard) and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1976. Her father was ousted in a military coup by General Zia ul-Haq in July 1977 and executed on April 4, 1979 — a formative trauma that shaped her lifelong opposition to military rule. After years of house arrest and exile, she assumed leadership of the PPP and returned to Pakistan in 1986 to mass public welcome.
First term as Prime Minister (1988–1990): Bhutto became the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country when she was sworn in as Prime Minister on December 2, 1988, at age 35. Her first government was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in August 1990 on charges of corruption and incompetence.
Second term as Prime Minister (1993–1996): Elected again in October 1993, Bhutto served until November 1996, when President Farooq Leghari dismissed her government — again on corruption charges. Both sets of charges were politically motivated, in the assessment of most international observers, though some financial impropriety by her husband Asif Ali Zardari (who became known as “Mr. Ten Percent” for alleged kickbacks) was documented.
She lived in self-imposed exile in Dubai and London from 1999 until 2007, facing unresolved corruption cases in Pakistani courts. The October 2007 return was negotiated through a deal in which Musharraf’s government granted her amnesty in exchange for her agreement to contest elections and potentially share power in a civilian-military arrangement supported by the United States and United Kingdom.
The Return to Pakistan and the October 2007 Attack
Bhutto returned to Karachi on October 18, 2007 — her first time in Pakistan in nearly nine years. Her arrival drew an enormous crowd; estimates ranged from 150,000 to 200,000 supporters lining the streets for a seven-hour procession from the airport. Late that night, two suicide bombs exploded within seconds of each other near her motorcade, killing approximately 139 people and wounding more than 450 — the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan’s history at that point. Bhutto survived because she had moved inside the vehicle minutes before the blasts.
She publicly stated she had received intelligence about a plot and blamed elements in the Pakistani government for the attack. The incident underscored the extreme danger of her return. Despite this, she resumed campaigning across Pakistan in November and December 2007, holding rallies throughout the Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The December 27 Assassination
The rally at Liaquat National Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27 drew thousands of PPP supporters. The park is historically significant — it is the site where Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in 1951.
After the rally concluded, Bhutto entered her white Land Cruiser. As her vehicle moved slowly through the crowd and she stood through the open sunroof to wave to supporters, shots were fired; within seconds, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device alongside the vehicle. The blast threw shrapnel and debris across a wide area, killing 23 people in addition to Bhutto and wounding hundreds more. Security camera footage from the scene was later reviewed by Scottish and Pakistani investigators; the footage was of poor quality and did not definitively show whether a bullet or blast killed Bhutto.
She was driven to Rawalpindi General Hospital; the neurosurgeon who treated her stated that she arrived in a state of severe hemorrhagic shock and was declared dead at 18:16 local time. Her body was flown to her ancestral home in Larkana, Sindh, for burial alongside her father in the Bhutto family mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on December 28.
Investigation and Attribution
The investigation into Bhutto’s death was contentious and internationally scrutinized. Within hours, Pakistani government officials — relying on intercepted communications — attributed the attack to Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban commander operating from South Waziristan who was also linked to numerous other terrorist attacks within Pakistan. The CIA independently assessed Mehsud as the likely organizer.
A three-member United Nations Commission of Inquiry, appointed in 2009 and chaired by Chilean diplomat Heraldo Muñoz, published its findings in April 2010. The commission concluded that:
- Pakistani officials deliberately failed to provide adequate security for Bhutto despite prior warnings and requests;
- Pakistani authorities impeded the investigation of her death, including washing down the crime scene hours after the attack, preventing autopsy information from being gathered, and failing to preserve forensic evidence;
- The identity of the attackers could not be definitively established due to the obstruction of investigations.
Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a CIA drone strike in South Waziristan on August 5, 2009, before he could be prosecuted for Bhutto’s murder or any other crime.
Significance
Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country, having served as Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. Her assassination removed the most prominent democratic opposition figure in Pakistan and deepened the country’s political instability at a critical moment: President Musharraf had declared a state of emergency in November 2007, suspending the constitution, and U.S. pressure had secured both its lifting and Bhutto’s return as a counterweight. Her death undermined Western hopes of a stable civilian-military power-sharing arrangement in a nuclear-armed state then heavily engaged in the U.S.-backed war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The assassination accelerated Musharraf’s political decline. The February 2008 elections resulted in a coalition government hostile to him, and he resigned the presidency in August 2008. Her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, then a 19-year-old Oxford student, was named PPP co-chair alongside his father and became one of Pakistan’s most prominent political figures in the 2010s, eventually serving as Foreign Minister from 2022 to 2023.
Bhutto’s murder remains a landmark moment in the long struggle between Pakistani democratic forces and extremist violence, and it catalyzed renewed international focus on the country’s security situation. The PPP’s electoral success following her death has been attributed in part to a sympathy wave; her image and legacy became central to Pakistani opposition politics for years afterward. Her 2008 memoir Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, published posthumously, articulated her argument that Islam and democracy were compatible — a thesis she maintained through her final weeks of campaigning.
Sources
- Assassination of Benazir Bhutto — Wikipedia
- Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto assassinated — History.com
- UN report on Bhutto murder finds Pakistani officials ‘failed profoundly’ — UN News
- Scotland Yard: Bomb blast killed Bhutto — CNN
- Benazir Bhutto — Wikipedia — full biographical record including early life, education, and political career.
- Karachi bombings (2007) — Wikipedia — the October 18 return attack that killed approximately 139 people.