Benazir Bhutto Biography (1953-2007)

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday (Dec. 27, 2007) in a suicide attack as she drove away from a campaign rally attended by thousands of supporters.

The death of the charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 election into chaos and created fears of mass protests and an eruption of violence.

The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, 8 miles south of Islamabad.

She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto's security adviser.

On Oct. 18, 2007, two bombs exploded near a truck carrying Bhutto on her triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years in exile, killing at least 108 people and wounding 150, an official said. Party workers and police said Bhutto was unhurt.

A Taliban commander had threatened to greet her return with suicide bombers.

Bhutto was born June 21, 1953, in Karachi, SE Pakistan, the eldest child of former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973, she attended Radcliffe College, and then Harvard University, where she graduated with a B.A. degree in comparative government.

It was then onto the United Kingdom to study at Oxford from 1973 to 1977. There, she completed a course in International Law and Diplomacy.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 1977, and was placed under house arrest after the military coup led by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq overthrew her father's government.

One year after Zia ul-Haq became president in 1978, the elder Bhutto was hanged after his conviction on charges of authorizing the murder of an opponent. Both of Bhutto's brothers were also killed.

She moved to England in 1984, becoming the joint leader in exile of the Opposition Pakistan People's Party, then returned to Pakistan in 1986 to launch a nationwide campaign for 'open elections.'

She married a wealthy landowner, Asif Ali Zardari, in Karachi on December 18, 1987. The couple had three children: son Bilawal and two daughters, Bakhtawar and Aseefa.

Zia ul-Haq's dictatorship ended when he was killed in a plane crash in 1988. And Bhutto was elected prime minister barely three months after giving birth to her first child.

Bhutto was defeated in the 1991 election, and found herself in court defending herself against several charges of misconduct while in office.

She continued to be a prominent focus of opposition discontent, and won a further election in 1993, but was replaced in 1996.

A year after going into a self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998, she was convicted in absentia of corruption and sentenced (in 2002) to three years in prison. She continued to direct her party from abroad, being re-affirmed as PPP leader in 2002.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with General Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn.