After returning to Karachi, Pakistan, on October 18, 2007, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. “The assassins persisted, striking her down on December 27, 2007, while she was attending a political rally in Rawalpindi… The UN investigators concluded that Benazir was probably killed by al Qaeda and its Pakistani Taliban allies, who recruited the fifteen-year-old suicide bomber. Claiming credit for the murder, an al Qaeda spokesman boasted, ‘We have terminated the most precious American asset’ in Pakistan. …The investigators also concluded that the ISI [Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence] played a key role in the cover-up and intimidated the Pakistani police to keep them from doing their job.”
– Bruce Riedel, Deadly Embrace, Pages 77-78