Bhutto a victim of South Asia's cursed dynasties

By Simon Denyer

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Benazir Bhutto only entered politics after her father was executed by the military.

On Thursday she was assassinated, a depressingly predictable end for a member of one of South Asia's seemingly cursed political dynasties.

Powerful families from the Bhuttos of Pakistan to the Gandhis of India and the Bandaranaike family of Sri Lanka have dominated politics in this diverse and polyglot region since independence from Britain.

But none have escaped tragedy at the hands of rebels, extremists or ambitious military leaders.

It was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who founded Pakistan's troubled dynasty. He became the country's first popularly elected prime minister but was toppled by the army in 1977 and later hanged.

Both his sons died in mysterious circumstances.

His daughter Benazir, a former prime minister, was lucky to survive when a suicide attack on her motorcade killed nearly 150 people as she returned to Pakistan in October after eight years in exile.

Later that month she paid an emotional return to her father's grave in their ancestral village in southern Pakistan.