Bhutto prays at father's grave, visits stronghold amid tight security - Haaretz

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Mon., October 29, 2007 Cheshvan 17, 5768

Israel Time: 01:58 (EST+7)

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Bhutto prays at father's grave, visits stronghold amid tight security

By Reuters

GARHI KHUDA BAKSH, Pakistan, - Thousands of party faithful feted former prime minister Benazir Bhutto yesterday as she visited her stronghold in southern Pakistan, days after an assassination bid that killed 139 people.

Chanting "Long Live Bhutto," around 4,000 jubilant supporters of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) cheered and clapped as Bhutto arrived in a bulletproof vehicle at her father's vast mausoleum in their ancestral village of Garhi Khuda Baksh, near the town of Larkana in Sindh province.

Standing through the sunroof behind her secretary, Bhutto - who returned to Pakistan last week after eight years of self-exile - waved to crowds who were prevented from approaching the vehicle by security staff wielding AK-47s.

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A huge Bhutto portrait hung from a pylon, and green, red and black PPP flags fluttered as her convoy whipped up a dust storm.

Bhutto draped a shawl inscribed with Islamic verses and sprinkled rose petals on her father's grave. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected prime minister, was toppled by the military in 1977 and later hanged.

She then sat by the tomb, reciting Koranic verses.

"I feel very emotional. I wanted to visit the tomb of my father, the leader of the people, and offer prayers," Bhutto told reporters afterwards, before being driven to her family home flanked by paramilitaries in jeeps mounted with machine-guns.

"There is still danger of attack, but Allah can protect everyone and I am not scared of these people (militants)."

Ardent supporters in the rural area clamored outside the tomb. Oxford-educated Bhutto has huge feudal support in her native Sindh and is the country's most popular politician.

"This great nation is not scared of a bomb explosion and terrorism," she later told a news conference at her ancestral home. "We are against dictatorship. We believe that whenever there is dictatorship there is terrorism."

Earlier, as she left the plane, Bhutto kissed a copy of the Koran and a man wrapped a traditional Sindhi shawl around her shoulders. She waved at supporters who showered her with rose petals as she began the drive to Larkana.

Supporters dressed in traditional pajama-like shalwar kameez chased her convoy on foot.

Hundreds of police and paramilitary troops were deployed at Sukkur airport for Bhutto's first foray outside Karachi since last week's attack marred her return to Pakistan after eight years abroad to avoid corruption charges.

At least one suicide bomber, possibly two, attacked her convoy in Karachi as it traveled slowly through hundreds of thousands of supporters.

PPP flags and portraits of Bhutto and her father lined the roads in the countryside around Garhi Khuda Baksh.

The government blames the Karachi attack on Islamist militants based in tribal lands bordering neighboring Afghanistan, where Al-Qaida and the Taliban are entrenched.

Bhutto suspects political allies of President Pervez Musharraf were also plotting against her, though she says she has no reason to believe he was personally involved.

Musharraf granted an amnesty that allowed Bhutto to return to Pakistan without fear of prosecution in graft cases hanging over her from the 1990s. There is speculation the pair could end up sharing power after national elections due by early January.

This would be welcomed by the United States, which is worried by rising militancy in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

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