Thousands throng Bhutto's burial
GARHI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan — Hundreds of thousands of mourners, weeping and chanting for justice, thronged the mausoleum of Pakistan's most famous political dynasty today in a raw outpouring of grief for Benazir Bhutto.
The government blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for the assassination of the opposition leader, who was buried alongside her father.
Furious supporters, many of them blaming President Pervez Musharraf's government for the shooting and bombing attack on the former prime minister, rampaged through several cities in violence that left at least 23 dead less than two weeks before crucial elections.
Some wept, others chanted "Benazir is alive," as the plain wood coffin was placed beside the grave of her father in the vast, white marble mausoleum in southern Sindh province near the Bhuttos' ancestral home.
Thursday's attack on Bhutto plunged Pakistan into turmoil and badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed nation, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror.
Musharraf initially blamed her death on unnamed Islamic militants, but Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told The Associated Press today that "we have the evidence that al-Qaida and the Taliban were behind the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto."
He said investigators had resolved the "whole mystery" behind the opposition leader's killing and would give details at press conference later today.
Bhutto's supporters ransacked banks, waged shootouts with police and burned trains and stations in a spasm of violence less than two weeks before parliamentary elections.
Soldiers patrolled the streets of the southern cities of Hyderabad and Karachi in an effort to quell violence, witnesses said.
Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said the government had no immediate plans to postpone Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, despite the growing chaos and a top opposition leader's decision to boycott the poll.
"Right now the elections stand where they were," he told a news conference. "We will consult all the political parties to take any decision about it."
Mourners traveled to Garhi Khuda Bakhsh by tractor, bus, car and jeep. Many crammed inside the mausoleum and threw petals on the coffin. Women beat their heads and chests in grief.
"As long as the moon and sun are alive, so is the name of Bhutto," they chanted.
An Islamic cleric led mourners in prayers and Bhutto's son, Bilawal, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, helped lower the coffin beside the grave of her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also a popular former prime minister who met a violent death. Thousands of supporters then filed in to shovel dirt onto the grave.
Some mourners angrily blamed Musharraf, the former army chief, for Bhutto's death, shouting "General, killer!" "Army, killer."
The death of the 54-year-old Bhutto left her party without a clear successor. Her husband, who was freed in December 2004 after eight years in detention on graft charges, is one contender to head the party, although he lacks the cachet of a blood relative.
"I don't know what will happen to the country now," said Nazakat Soomro, 32.
Bhutto's funeral procession began at her ancestral residence in the southern town of Naudero. Her plain wood coffin, draped in the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan People's Party, was carried in a white ambulance toward the marble mausoleum, about three miles away, passing a burning passenger train on the way.
Violence roared through much of the country. A mob in Karachi looted at least three banks and set them on fire, and engaged in a shootout with police that left three officers wounded, police said.
About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas. In the capital, Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tires in a commercial district.
Paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live fire against rioters in southern Pakistan, said Maj. Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman.
"We have orders to shoot on sight," he said.
