Pakistan Mourning

We've followed the slow disintegration of the Pakistani state througout 2007 (see Pakistan and the Coming Chaos, Pakistan Simmering, Rumblings, and Pakistan Burning). This slow disintegration may pick up speed with the latest tragedy to befall that troubled land.

With the death of Benazir Bhutto, we are now entering worst-case-scenario territory. A Pakistan that has devolved into Iraq-style globalguerrilla violence will create a huge node of instability, threatening India and Iran (not that I am losing sleep over that one) and pretty much guaranteeing that Afghanistan will not find stability for decades to come.

Pakistan's Bhutto killed in gun, bomb attack
By Augustine Anthony

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, her party said.

"She has been martyred," said party official Rehman Malik.

Bhutto, 54, died in hospital in Rawalpindi. Ary-One Television said she had been shot in the head. Police said a suicide bomber fired shots at Bhutto as she was leaving the rally venue in a park before blowing himself up...

UPDATE: As the potential fallout from this assassination sinks in, the one thing I fear is that this could be a defining moment in the slow boil of the coming breakdown of Pakistan. Much like the bombing of the Al-Askariya Mosque in 2006 plunged Iraq into a cauldron of sectarian-based slaughter (read John Robb's take on this effect here), what I fear is that the Bhutto assassination will spark a similar change in mindset among her potential supporters - a change from (relatively) peaceful opposition to the State to the beginnings of a 4GW conflict. Here's hoping I'm wrong.

UPDATE 2: The operative quote is now "God Save Pakistan" as the situation deteriorates:

Police Given Shoot To Kill Orders

(CNN) -- Angry protesters burned cars and shops into the night following the assassination Thursday of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Benazir Bhutto supporters in Peshawar burn items from the party that backs President Pervez Musharraf on Friday.

"It's all mayhem everywhere," Shehryar Ahmad, an investment banker in Karachi, told CNN by telephone Thursday night. "There's absolutely no order of any kind. No army on the streets. No curfew."

At least five people were killed in Karachi in the violence, GEO TV reported, and dozens more were wounded. Police in Khairpur fired on an angry mob, killing two people, the station reported, and two more people were killed in Larkana...