Assassinations in Pakistan: Politicians under attack

Timeline of political assassinations in the country.

The assassination of the governor of Pakistan's most politically important province Punjab, Salman Taseer, is the latest killing of a politician from the country in recent years.

- October 18, 2007: A suicide attack and another smaller blast targeting former premier Benazir Bhutto kill 139 people in Karachi, as she returned to Pakistan for the first time in eight years.

- December 27, 2007: Bhutto is killed in a shooting and suicide bombing, along with nearly two dozen of her supporters, as she leaves a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

- October 2, 2008: A suicide bomber blows himself up at the house of Asfandyar Wali Khan, head of the Awami National Party in Pakistan's ruling coalition, killing four people but missing the politician.

- October 6, 2008: A suicide bomber kills 18 people and wounds Pakistani politician Rashid Akbar Nowani, a minority Shiite MP from the main opposition party in the town of Bhakkar in Punjab province.

- August 2, 2010: Raza Haider, a provincial legislator for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Sindh, where his party is part of the ruling coalition, is shot dead in Karachi, sparking riots that kill more than 40 people.

- September 16, 2010: Imran Farooq, a founding member of MQM, is murdered in London, where he lived in exile.

- January 4, 2011: Taseer is assassinated by one of his guards in Islamabad. He was one of the most moderate political voices in the main ruling Pakistan People's Party of President Asif Ali Zardari.