Assassinations

In movies, the CIA has so many prolifically lethal assassins roaming the world that the main problem often seems to be reining them in. But details that spilled out this week about a real CIA assassination program indicate that when the plotting is being done by spies instead of screenwriters, the obstacles are not so easy to surmount. According to current and former U.S.

After three days of national mourning, life in this grief- and violence-stricken land limped back toward normal Monday as residents crept gingerly out of their homes to buy supplies, greet their neighbors and reanimate cityscapes that had turned into virtual ghost towns following the assassination last week of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

With the party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto pushing for elections to be held on schedule next week, President Pervez Musharraf's government appeared poised Monday to postpone the vote well into February. Pakistan's Election Commission, which is made up of Musharraf supporters, was to have announced today that the vote would be delayed. But the decision was so contentious that the announcement was put off until Wednesday.

A U.S. diplomat and his driver were fatally shot early Tuesday in Khartoum, the capital of war-torn Sudan, U.S. officials said. John Granville, 33, who grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., worked for the United States Agency for International Development. Reports indicated that Granville was shot four or five times while being driven home about 4 a.m., suffering wounds in the abdomen, hand and left shoulder. He died several hours later at a hospital, U.S. officials said.

Scotland Yard investigators arrived Friday in Pakistan to help investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, although the extent of their mandate was unclear. The team of British anti-terrorism officers was dispatched after President Pervez Musharraf, under intense criticism over the handling of the Bhutto inquiry, agreed to accept outside assistance. Musharraf's government initially had rebuffed international participation of any kind in the investigation.

Candles flicker, petals scatter and bouquets slowly wilt at the spot where Benazir Bhutto was slain. Although some passers-by still break down in tears at the sight of this makeshift shrine, the pressing question for many Pakistanis as the outpouring of grief over her assassination subsides is whether President Pervez Musharraf will manage to survive this crisis, as he has so many others. In the first days after the Dec.

President Bush on Saturday bemoaned the latest assassination of a Lebanese official and told Syria and Iran to "end their interference" in their neighbor's affairs. Investigators tried to determine whether the killing was tied to past attacks against anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon. "We demand that Syria, Iran and their allies end their interference in and obstruction of Lebanon's political process," Bush said in a statement.

In findings similar to those of the Pakistani government, Scotland Yard investigators asserted Friday that Benazir Bhutto died of a head injury resulting from the force of a suicide blast, not by shots fired toward her seconds earlier.

On the day Benazir Bhutto died, Yousef Leghari watched his native Sindh province erupt. For five days, people vented their rage by firing weapons, and setting fire to vehicles and buildings. Bhutto was Sindh's native daughter, and she had been assassinated. But not just anywhere. The popular opposition leader had been killed in Punjab province, Pakistan's locus of government and military power, and a source of envy in Sindh and other minority provinces.

The leader of Hezbollah told thousands of mourners Thursday that his Shiite Muslim militant organization would strike Israel to avenge the assassination of one of its most elusive top commanders. Israel has denied orchestrating the car bomb attack that killed Imad Mughniyah on Tuesday in Damascus, the Syrian capital.