Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Police said a suicide bomber fired shots at the Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister as she was leaving the rally before blowing himself up.
A party security adviser said Bhutto, 54, was shot in the neck and chest as she got into her car.
A spokesman for the Pakistan People’s Party, of which Bhutto was the leader, said she had become a martyr.
“It is the act of those who want to disintegrate Pakistan because she was symbol of unity,” said a senior party official, Farzana Raja, to Reuters news. “They have finished the Bhutto family. They are enemies of Pakistan.”
Rioting broke out as her supporters gathered outside the hospital where her death was confirmed and in cities across Pakistan. Some began chanting, “Killer, Killer, Musharraf,” referring to President Pervez Musharraf, Bhutto’s main political opponent.
Musharraf, who had allowed Bhutto return to participate in parliamentary elections planned for January, has appealed for calm in a message broadcast on state television.