Following the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto Thursday, bloggers, defiantly active despite President Musharraf-sponsored press blackouts in the past, are chiming in with what they see as Pakistan's national reaction. The Pakistani Spectator is reporting that members of Bhutto's People's Party are "sitting and weeping loudly" in front of the Rawalpindi Hospital, where Bhutto died. Blog commenters say there are random shootings and fires springing up all over Karachi as part of a "widespread panic."

Bhutto proved prescient in a WaPo Op-Ed written in September 2007, when she had the following to say of the Muslim extremists who have brought so much violence to Pakistan: "Civil unrest is what the extremists want. Anarchy and chaos suit them." Now, such is the case bubbling up across Pakistan, and bloggers like Metroblogging Karachi say "people are rushing to their homes in anticipation of protests."

Bhutto was shot in the neck and chest after a rally in Rawalpindi Thursday, reportedly at the behest of high-ranking Al Qaeda leaders. As her escort sped away to take the wounded former prime minister to the hospital, her assassin blew himself up, killing several others at the scene. You know it's a major world news event when even Dubya is roused from his lazy holiday in Crawford to make a televised statement about the situation in the country some pundits say is "the most dangerous" in the world.