The January 8 parliamentary elections in Pakistan are likely to be put off, said analysts Sunday, due to the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered Thursday night in a shooting and suicide bombing following a political rally. Bhutto requested security assistance from the Mossad (Israel's international security agency) as well as from Britain's Scotland Yard and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency following a prior assassination attempt in October.
President Pervez Musharraf's party spokesman, Tariq Azim, said a 12-week delay in holding elections would be "realistic" and that Musharraf's party has suspended campaigning for re-election for the time being. There has been severe unrest in the nuclear-armed nation since Bhutto's murder, with at least 38 people dead in violent riots and clashes throughout the country in response to the assassination. The Islamist Al-Qaeda international terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attack.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Bhutto was 'the victim of Islamic fundamentalist terror, one that is well known in Israel."