Pakistan is ablaze and in chaos after opposition leader Lady Benazir Bhutto was shot down and assassinated after giving a speech in Rawalpindi.  Twenty other people were also killed in the attacks.

She was the first female president of a Muslim state.  She was twice the president of Pakistan before being thrown out of office both times on bogus charges.  She was 54-years-old.

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack. Her death threw the campaign for critical Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and stoked fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

At least 20 others were also killed in the attack on a campaign rally where the 54-year-old Bhutto had just spoken.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is blaming the killings on Islamic extremists. He then said he would do whatever it takes to root the terrorists out of the country.

Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was a former president of Pakistan before being ousted in 1977 and then executed.  Two of her brothers were also killed in the past twenty years.