The "Silver Bullet" is assassinated.

You can expect the death today of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto to forever be labeled one which occurred under "mysterious circumstances". Via Buckdog:

Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed Thursday in an apparent suicide attack at a campaign rally in which at least 20 others died.

There are a multitude of possibilities here as to who would best benefit from Bhutto's assassination, but among the leading suspects, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency will stand out.

Questions were immediately raised about how a suicide bomber could get so close to Bhutto after previous attacks.

Many observers were left to speculate whether the government of President Pervez Musharraf or Pakistan's security forces were involved in the attack, said Tariq Amin-Khan, an assistant professor of politics and public administration at Toronto's Ryerson University.

"Security has been very lax," Amin-Khan told CBC News in a telephone interview from Karachi. "One could fault the government for what it has not done."

Musharraf himself has been the target of numerous attacks blamed on Islamist militants, who have reported ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

"I find it difficult to believe that Musharraf would be directly involved, but you can't put it past the security service agencies," Amin-Khan said.

Bhutto's security adviser also said the government had ignored requests for beefed-up security, including bomb-jammers, which can thwart signals sent to detonate explosives.

All news reports are speculating that there will be extensive rioting across Pakistan.

I think that's probably understating the problem.

Expect a return to a state of emergency followed by a full-blown civil war.