Benazir Bhutto, 54, died in hospital in Rawalpindi today. Ary-One Television said she had been shot in the head. "The man first fired at Bhutto's vehicle. She ducked and then he blew himself up," said police officer Mohammad Shahid.
In a previous attempt in October 18 a suicide bomber killed nearly 150 people in an attack on Bhutto as she paraded through the southern city of Karachi after returning home from eight years in self-imposed exile
Who is Benazir Bhutto:* Benazir Bhutto was born on June 21, 1953, into a wealthy landowning family. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and was president and later prime minister of Pakistan from 1971 to 1977.
* After gaining degrees in politics at Harvard and Oxford universities, she returned to Pakistan in 1977, just before the military seized power from her father. She inherited the leadership of the PPP after her father's execution in 1979 under military ruler General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.
* First voted in as prime minister in 1988, Bhutto was sacked by the then-president on corruption charges in 1990. She took power again in 1993 after her successor, Nawaz Sharif, was forced to resign after a row with the president. Bhutto was no more successful in her second spell as prime minister, and Sharif was back in power by 1996.
* In 1999, both Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, were sentenced to five years in jail and fined $8.6 million on charges of taking kickbacks from a Swiss company hired to fight customs fraud. A higher court later overturned the conviction as biased. Bhutto, who had made her husband investment minister during her period in office from 1993 to 1996, was abroad at the time of her conviction and chose not to return to Pakistan.
* In 2006 she joined an Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy with her arch-rival Sharif, but the two disagreed over strategy for dealing with Musharraf. Bhutto decided it was better to negotiate with Musharraf, while Sharif has refused to have any dealings with the general.
* Bhutto returned to Pakistan last month from self-imposed exile after Musharraf, with whom she had been negotiating over Pakistan's transition to civilian-led democracy, granted her protection from prosecution in old corruption cases. A suicide attack on Bhutto in Karachi on Oct. 19 killed 139 supporters and members of her security team.
