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Former Pakistani Prime Minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack after speaking at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on December 27, 2007. Bhutto's attacker shot her in the neck and chest and then blew himself up next to her car. She was 54. Bhutto is pictured visiting the White House in a June 6, 1989 file photo in Washington. (UPI Photo/Cliff Owen/FILES)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- Although no group had claimed responsibility for Thursday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto, suspicion turned to Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

Security experts noted the extremists had threatened the former prime minister for seeking democratic reform and for her links to the West, CNN reported.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on state television the killers were the same extremists his military has been fighting. He vowed to bring them to justice.

Vince Cannistraro, a veteran U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official who ran the agency's counterterrorism operations from 1989 to 1991, told CNN several groups had something to gain from Bhutto's death.

"Clearly al-Qaida and Islamic fundamentalists had expressed hatred toward her," Cannistraro told CNN. "They would be No. 1 on the list."