Written by Jonathon M. Seidl

ISLAMABAD — Assailants purportedly sent by al-Qaida and the Taliban killed the only Christian member of Pakistan’s federal Cabinet Wednesday, spraying his car with bullets outside his mother’s driveway. It was the second assassination in two months of a high-profile opponent of blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.

The killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, a 42-year-old Roman Catholic, further undermines Pakistan’s shaky image as a moderate Islamic state and could deepen the political turmoil in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied state where militants frequently stage suicide attacks.

The Vatican said the assassination shows that the pope’s warnings about the danger to Christians in the region are fully justified.

Bhatti, a campaigner for human rights causes, had apparently been... http://www.theblaze.com/stories/assassinated-christian-pakistani-govt-of...