Anger at Musharraf was already running high, and Bhutto's murder could lead to a public explosion. That anger is also heaped on the United States because the Bush administration still supports Musharraf.

I think one can make as good a case, however, that the murder was committed by jihadi extremists. Bhutto was the prime ministerial candidate most outspoken about the need to clamp down on Pakistan's religious militants. On Thursday morning she had met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and told him that these militants threatened not only Pakistan and Afghanistan but also their region and the world.

In a large public meeting on Sunday, Bhutto accused the Musharraf government of failing to stop militant violence: "They always try to stop democratic forces, but they don't make any effort to check extremists, terrorists and fanatics," she said. She also condemned Musharraf for failing to clamp down on radical religious schools that teach youngsters how to make bombs.

Her outspoken critique of the jihadis was a risk in a country where many Pakistanis think the United States is forcing them to fight its war on al-Qaida and the Taliban. Bhutto thought differently. She said it was Pakistan's war, too, and warned that the militants wanted to undermine the Pakistani state. For that, many Pakistanis labeled her an American agent.

But she rightly believed her country's future was at risk. Last summer, when she spoke in New York at the Council on Foreign Relations, I asked her what she would do differently from her first two (and many think failed) prime ministerial terms. She replied, "If I had it to do again, I would not have tolerated the rise of the Taliban." She was referring to the Pakistani military's support for the Afghan Taliban in the mid-1990s; the clear implication was that she would combat current Pakistani support for the Taliban if she became prime minister. Whether she could have rallied the military behind her we will never know.

Her death most likely means that elections won't be held. An extended Musharraf government will face bitter opposition on the streets, especially since there is unlikely to be any transparent investigation into her murder. And religious militants will benefit from the political vacuum that ensues.

One of Pakistan's top experts on militant Islam, journalist Ahmed Rashid, told me: "I think (the killing) has all the hallmarks of al-Qaida. It was well planned, well trained. The country is now in a state of chaos. The country is an al-Qaida target now."

Benazir Bhutto foresaw this danger. And now she is gone.

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Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. E-mail at trubinphillynews.com.