By FIONA BARTON

Last updated at 17:35 28 December 2007

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto plunged Pakistan into violent turmoil last night and the western world into a state of trepidation.

The immediate fear was of civil war in the volatile, nuclear-armed nation where Islamic extremism flourishes.

The country's charismatic and controversial former prime minister died after an assassin blew himself up by her car in the midst of thousands of her followers in the garrison town of Rawalpindi.

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According to Sky News today, Al Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the assassination.

Protests erupted in major cities and by last night a dozen people had died, mostly in gun battles with police. Security forces were on red alert.

Elsewhere trains were hijacked and set alight, banks were burned down, and government offices ransacked.

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Plans for a general election, due to take place in 12 days, are now uncertain.

Gordon Brown and George Bush condemned the murder, while Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf appealed for calm.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion fell on Islamic militants who have threatened repeatedly to kill the 54-year-old former premier for becoming "an American stooge".

But fingers will also be pointed at Inter-Services Intelligence, the agency that has had close ties to the Islamists since the 1970s and has been used by successive Pakistani leaders to suppress opposition.

Analysts say that President Musharraf himself is unlikely to have ordered the killing but that elements of the army and intelligence service would have stood to lose money and power if she had become premier.

Shortly before her return to Pakistan in October after eight years in exile, Bhutto told a newspaper: "They might try to assassinate me. I have prepared my family and my loved ones for any possibility."

Hundreds of riot police manned security checkpoints around Rawalpindi's Liaqat Bagh Park as Bhutto addressed an election campaign rally, telling the crowds: "I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger.

"People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis."

Minutes later, there was carnage, chaos and panic. At least 20 others were killed and dozens maimed in the blast.

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The opposition leader of the Pakistan People's Party was pulled from the wreckage of her vehicle and rushed to hospital where she underwent emergency surgery but could not be saved.

Body parts were scattered across the entrance to the park. Police caps and shoes littered the asphalt and the clothing of victims was shredded.

The scene is just a few miles from where her father, another former prime minister, was executed 28 years ago and adds a further bloody chapter to the history of a political dynasty.

Both of Bhutto's brothers died in mysterious circumstances and she claimed Al Qaeda hitmen tried to kill her several times in the 1990s.

The most recent attempt on her life was in October, when she survived a suicide bombing which killed 140 at her homecoming parade.

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After that attack she revealed that she had received a letter purporting to be from a friend of Osama bin Laden and threatening to slaughter her "like a goat".

Her return was triumphant, but fraught with peril yet she was defiant to the end. "Bhutto is alive! Bhutto is alive!" she shouted at a rally earlier this month.

For years the glamorous face of Pakistan politics, she had been photographed putting the finishing touches to her make up just minutes before her final address.

After speaking she left the podium, surrounded by plainclothes guards, and climbed into an armoured car.

As the vehicle made its way through the throng of supporters, she stood up to wave goodbye and the killer seized the moment.

It is not known how he was able to get close enough to try to shoot her and then blow up himself and her car.

While emergency services coped with the physical aftermath of the bombing, Pakistan's political masters convened crisis meetings to discuss the country's immediate future.

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A spokesman for former cricketer Imran Khan's opposition Pakistan Movement for Justice party said there was "a real danger" of civil war.

"The impact will be that Pakistan is in more turmoil - it will be the start of civil war in Pakistan."

There were scenes of hysteria among Bhutto's supporters who gathered outside Rawalpindi General Hospital when they heard the news of her death.

Some smashed the glass door at the main entrance, others wept and one man beat his chest in anguish.

In surrounding streets, crowds chanted slogans against President Musharraf, accusing him of complicity in the attack.

Across the country, Bhutto's supporters burned banks, state-run grocery stores and private shops.

At least four people were killed ahead of an election rally which had been due to take place close to Rawalpindi.

Several people died in protests in Karachi, capital of the Bhutto's heartland province of Sindh, where shots were fired at government buildings.

Akhtar Zamin, home minister for Sindh, said authorities would deploy troops to stop violence if needed.

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Police in Peshawar, in the northwest, used batons and tear gas to break up a rally by protesters chanting anti-Musharraf slogans

Unrest was also reported in Quetta, Multan and Shikarpur.

There were fears of worse violence today fanned by the expected funeral.

According to Islamic tradition, funerals should be held as quickly as possible after a death.

Bhutto's body was being taken last night by special flight to her home town of Larkana in the south of the country.

Her husband Asif Zardari was flying to Pakistan from Dubai where he lived in exile. Her three teenage children were also travelling to Pakistan.

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Shadow over a political family

Benazir Bhutto is the latest victim of the curse that hovers over the Bhutto dynasty.

She will be laid to rest in the family mausoleum alongside her father who was hanged, a brother shot dead by police and another brother who died mysteriously in exile.

Her family's involvement in public affairs stretches back to the days of the British Raj.

After independence, her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People's Party and served as president from 1971 to 1973 and prime minister from 1973 to 1977.

An inspiring orator, he was seen as the first Pakistani politician to speak directly to peasants and factory workers.

But in 1977, Bhutto was deposed in a coup led by General Zia-ul Haq. Two years later he was executed after being found guilty of vote-rigging, undermining the judiciary, evading taxes and authorising the murder of opponents.

His son, Shahnawaz, was found dead in Cannes in July 1985, aged 27, allegedly from poison.

With older brother Murtaza, he led the underground militant organisation, Al Zulfikar, bent on avenging their father's death and overthrowing Zia's military regime.

Murtaza died in a police shoot-out outside his Karachi home in September 1996.

Benazir Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was charged over his death but cleared after eight years in jail.