Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack that also killed at least 20 other people at the end of electio rally, Associated Press reported.

"The surgeons confirmed that she has been martyred," Bhutto's lawyer Babar Awan said.

"At 6:16 p.m. she expired," confirmed Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital where Bhutto was taken after the attack.

A party security adviser said Bhutto was shot in neck and chest as she got into her vehicle to leave the rally in Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad.

A gunman then blew himself up.

Bhutto supporters at the hospital began chanting "Dog, Musharraf, dog," referring to Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf. Some smashed the glass door at the main entrance of the emergency unit, others burst into tears.

In Washington, U.S. State Department said it was seeking confirmation of Bhutto's condition.

Bhutto served twice as Pakistan's prime minister between 1988 and 1996. She had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year earlier this year.

On the same day, her homecoming parade in Karachi was also targeted by a suicide attacker, killing more than 140 people.