Why the religious bigots wanted Bhutto dead

Telegraph:

From the moment she returned to Pakistani soil, Benazir Bhutto was the number one target for the country's Islamist radicals.

Even before her plane touched down at Karachi airport on Oct 18, two Taliban commanders had vowed to kill her, while a letter from an associate of Osama bin Laden threatened to slaughter her "like a sheep".

But she was prepared to dice with death at the hands of the militants, driving through the port city on a bus during a vast homecoming party.

Hours after her arrival, two suicide bombers struck her convoy, killing almost 140 people. Without the benefit of the state security protection afforded to the president, Pervez Musharraf, she ran greater daily risks than Pakistan's leader.

Mr Musharraf is also hated by the militants he helped the US to target in their "war on terror".

However, her status as number one target came partly from her unsparing criticism of the Islamists, ranging from teachers at religious colleges or madrassas, students and politicians to Taliban commanders and financiers, al-Qa'eda leaders sheltered in the country's lawless tribal regions and even renegade or retired intelligence officers.

"Terrorists and fanatics" was the expression Miss Bhutto used for them all in one of her last rallies. During this speech, in her home town of Larkana on Sunday, she accused Pakistan's madrassas of "teaching their pupils how to make bombs, how to use rifles and how to kill women and children". Pakistan's mosaic of terror groups knew an implacable opponent when they saw one - so they were determined to remove Miss Bhutto from the scene.

While many of her supporters have implicated the regime in her death - or accused the shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence agency - members of Pakistan's vast network of terrorist groups were probably responsible.

The nexus of local militants, combined with Taliban fighters and al-Qa'eda's core leadership - all of whom have their headquarters in Pakistan - probably produced the assassin who killed Miss Bhutto.

She personified everything that a radical Islamist abhorred. She was secular, Westernised and instinctively pro-American.

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The writer believes that Musharraf is too unpopular now to cobble together the needed political reforms. I am not sure that Bhutto could put aside her lust for wealth to do so either. She had a talent for making friends in the West, but she lacked the talent for being an effective leader and her administration was fraught with corruption. But, she was truly hated by the religious bigots and I think they were the ones who murdered her.