Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who had recently returned to the country in the hopes of a power sharing agreement with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, was killed this morning shortly after a political rally.  It is a very sad day.

Reports are still sketchy, but it appears that a gunman rode a motorized bike up to her SUV and fired five shots, perhaps from an AK-47.  Two shots struck Bhutto, one reportedly in the neck and another in the chest or head (reports conflict).  The gunman then detonated a suicide bomb that he was wearing, killing more than a dozen of Bhutto’s supporters.

This was already the third known attempt on Bhutto’s life since her return to Pakistan in October.  Extremists detonated what is believed to be a kidnapped infant after trying to get Bhutto to embrace the baby at her homecoming parade, and then earlier this week a 15-year-old boy wearing a suicide bomb was stopped at a security check point as he tried to get close to Bhutto at a rally.

The death of this pro-Western leader, who was educated at Oxford (U.K.) and Harvard (U.S.), is a morbid victory for Islamic extremists, and our hearts go out to the family of this brave ruler and entire nation of Pakistan, which now faces a future of civil unrest and violence in the wake of this tragic event.

Unfortunately, that is exactly the aim of the extremists who plotted and carried out this attack…