Benazir Bhutto, the first elected female leader of a Muslim state, was yesterday killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. The death of Ms Bhutto, 54, who had served as Pakistan's prime minister from 1988-90 and again from 1993-96, raised the spectre of instability and violence in the nuclear-armed Muslim nation.

Ms Bhutto - who returned to Pakistan in October after eight years of exile - had hoped to stage another political comeback in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8. The leader of the Pakistan People's party, the former prime minister had recently been negotiating the terms of a powersharing agreement with President Pervez Musharraf.