Bhutto was assassinated...

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated as a suicide bomber killed at least 14 of her supporters, a spokesman for her party and other officials said. Bhutto suffered bullet wounds

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been Musharraf's unlikely ally in this process, sometime combative, sometime conciliatory. Oxford-educated and the first woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state, Bhutto is the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was Pakistan's Prime Minister between 1973 and 1977.

Zulfikar was forced out of power by General Mohamed Zia-ul-Haq, who later had him executed for killing a political opponent, a charge Benazir and her supporters continue to deny three decades on.

This year, as Musharraf's popularity plummeted, a U.S.-approved deal between the President and his former rival cleared the way for Bhutto to return home from exile in Britain and Dubai on the understanding that Musharraf would step down from his army job and then serve another five-year term as President while Bhutto would lead her Pakistan People's Party, the country's biggest, to parliamentary success in early 2008 and serve as Prime Minister.

Chief Justice Chaudhry's court was also set to rule on the merits of this deal, which included the Musharraf government's dismissal of corruption charges leveled against Bhutto and her husband.

Bhutto's support had suffered after her decision to cut a deal with the unpopular President. She has called for street protests but has not ruled out going ahead with the original plan as long as Musharraf steps down as army chief and elections go ahead on schedule.

THE ISSUES

The War on Terror is key to American policy on Pakistan, which has gladly accepted $10 billion in aid from Washington since the 2001 attacks. In the years after 9/11, after the overthrow of the regime in Kabul, al-Qaeda and the Taliban have regrouped in the mountainous region along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

The area, often described as lawless, has long been controlled by fiercely conservative tribes that run their own semi-autonomous administration. Over the past few years foreign and local militants have grown stronger.

Last year, after failing to quash the insurgency militarily, the Pakistani army signed a brief cease-fire deal with some of the militant groups. The fighting has since resumed. U.S. intelligence agencies believe al-Qaeda has now rebuilt to the point where it could launch fresh attacks against America.
The Talibanization of Pakistan has raised fears that a future regime in the country may put Islambad's nuclear capacity — estimated at about 80 nuclear devices — into the hands of parties inimical to the West. Indeed, the militants have spread their influence into more moderate areas of Pakistan such as the once-touristy Swat Valley.

The militant groups have also launched attacks against Pakistan's cities, including the capital. In July 2007 a mosque in Islamabad became the site of a bloody confrontation between government security forces and radical Islamists and triggered a fresh wave of bombings, kidnappings and other attacks. Within hours of Bhutto's arrival home from exile last month, more than 150 people in her convoy were killed in a bomb blast targeting her.
Who Will Rule Pakistan? The question is paramount and critical at this moment. If the Musharraf-Bhutto deal has fallen through, then Pakistanis are left with an extremely unpopular dictator who nevertheless is the only moderating force on a military-and-security apparatus that many fear harbors extremist elements.

Bhutto, whose return to Pakistan was a nod toward democratic ideals, already believes that members of Pakistan's government and intelligence agencies knew about the attack on her homecoming convoy and helped plan it.

Musharraf's closest foreign allies have long feared that those same military and intelligence bodies still include officials sympathetic to the militants Islamabad is supposed to be fighting.

In the meantime, as Musharraf and Bhutto maneuver for advantage, the extremists in the mountains continue to expand their influence, day by day becoming a more realistic, if fearsome, option to ineffective Pakistani politics-as-usual.