US can't confirm Bhutto's assassination

The U.S. said that the fact of Benazir Bhotto’s death had not been confirmed, but nevertheless condemned an attack on her political rally.

Photo: US can't confirm Bhutto's assassination

Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that after press reports saying that the prominent oppositional leader had died the U.S. were seeking information but could not neither confirm nor deny the fact, the AP reported.

Bhutto’s lawyer said that she was shot in her breast and neck when getting into her vehicle to leave the rally in Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad. The murderer killed himself, too. At least 20 others were killed in the blast.

Ex-government spokesman Tariq Azim Khan said that, although it appeared that she'd been shot, it was unclear whether her bullet wounds had been caused by a shooting or shrapnel from the bomb.

Despite CIA was mobilized immediately, it can’t offer information of Bhutto's assassination.

That was not the first attempt to kill Benazir Bhutto.

After eight years in exile in Dubai and London, she returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007 to prepare for the 2008 national elections

En route to a rally in Karachi on 18 October 2007, two explosions occurred shortly after Bhutto had landed and left Jinnah International Airport. She was not injured but the explosions, later found to be a suicide-bomb attack, killed 136 people and injured at least 450. The dead included at least 50 of the security guards from her Pakistan Peoples Party who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away, as well as 6 police officers. A number of senior officials were injured. Bhutto was escorted unharmed from the scene