Violence spreads as family plan to bury Bhutto
Murdered Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will be laid to rest near her father in the family's ancestral village today.
One of Pakistan's most famous and enduring politicians, Ms Bhutto, 54, will be buried near her father's grave in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, said Nazir Dkhoki, a spokesman for her party.
Mr Dhoki, sobbing with grief, said Ms Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari and her children had arrived from Dubai to attend the funeral.
The assassination of Oxford-educated Ms Bhutto sparked riots across Pakistan by enraged supporters, leaving hopes for democracy hanging by a thread in the nuclear-armed US ally.
The attacker opened fire as Ms Bhutto after she had just addressed more than 5,000 supporters in Rawalpindi yesterday.
A smiling Ms Bhutto had stuck her head out of the sunroof of a white sports utility vehicle to respond to youths chanting her name, said Sardar Qamar Hayyat, an official from Bhutto's party.
"Then I saw a thin, young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away. That was the time when I heard a blast and fell down," Mr Hayyat said.
Ms Bhutto, who was rushed into emergency surgery, was struck by two bullets, one through the back of her neck that damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head, a doctor on the surgical team said.
The damage to her spinal cord was too great to save her, he said.
As the news spread, supporters gathered at the hospital where Ms Bhutto had been taken, smashed glass doors, stoned cars and chanted: "Killer, Killer, Musharraf."
Hours after Ms Bhutto's death, supporters carried her body out of the hospital in a wooden coffin.
The murder sparked violence in several cities that killed at least nine other people.
One man was killed in a shoot-out between police and protesters in Tando Allahyar, a town 120 miles north of Karachi, Pakistan's commercial hub, said mayor Kanwar Naveed.
Four others were killed in Karachi, two were killed elsewhere in the southern Sindh province and two in Lahore, police said.
Bhutto supporters in many towns burned banks, shops and state-run grocery stores. Some set fire to ruling party offices, Pakistani media reported.
It was later reported that about 4,000 Bhutto supporters have rallied in north-west Pakistan, ransacking the office of a pro-government party.
Several hundred of them attacked the office of the main pro-Musharraf party, burning furniture and stationery. The office was empty and no one was hurt.
Authorities would deploy troops to stop violence if needed, said Akhtar Zamin, home minister for Sindh province.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said today the US agency was investigating a purported claim of responsibility on Islamist websites for the attack by al-Qaida, that said the attack was planned by the terror group's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
The US, meanwhile, struggled to reformulate its plan to stabilise the country based on a rapprochement between Ms Bhutto and President Pervez Musharraf.
US president George Bush looked tense as he spoke to reporters, denouncing the "murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy".
Pakistani opposition politician Nawaz Sharif announced he was boycotting January 8 parliamentary elections in which Ms Bhutto was hoping to recapture the premiership, and Mr Musharraf reportedly considered cancelling the poll.
Mr Sharif, also a former prime minister, demanded the resignation of Mr Musharraf, the former army chief who toppled him in a 1999 coup.
The increasingly unpopular Mr Musharraf, who has pledged to restore democracy, stepped down as military leader last month, but manoeuvred to hold on to the presidency.
"Musharraf is the cause of all the problems," Mr Sharif said.
Mr Musharraf blamed Islamic terrorists, pledging in a nationally televised speech that "we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out".
Mr Musharraf called an emergency meeting to discuss a response to the killing and whether to postpone the election, an Interior Ministry official said. Mr Musharraf also announced three days of mourning, with all businesses, schools and banks to close.
The United Nations Security Council denounced the killing and urged "all Pakistanis to exercise restraint and maintain stability in the country".
Ms Bhutto's death closed yet another grim chapter in Pakistan's bloodstained history, 28 years after her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, another ex-prime minister, was hanged by a military dictatorship in the same northern city where she was killed.
The assassination left Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party leaderless and plunged the Muslim nation of 160 million into violence and recriminations, with Mr Musharraf blaming Muslim extremists and Bhutto supporters accusing his government of failing to protect her in the wake of death threats and previous attempts on her life.
Pakistani analysts were plunged into gloom.
"This assassination is the most serious setback for democracy in Pakistan," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore's University of Management Sciences.
"It shows extremists are powerful enough to disrupt the democratic process."
Meanwhile, Pakistani security officials are today searching for clues to identify the assassin.
