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Last update - 02:55 29/12/2007
Pakistan says Al-Qaida behind assassination of Benazir Bhutto
By News Agencies
Tags: Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan 

Pakistan has 'intelligence intercepts' indicating that Al-Qaida was behind the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

"We have intelligence intercepts indicating that Al-Qaida leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination," ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told a news conference.
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Mehsud is one of Pakistan's most wanted militant leaders and is based in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border.

The Bhutto's funeral in southern Pakistan on Friday was filled with the rawest emotions for the hundreds of thousands who converged on her family's mausoleum here.

People crammed inside the cavernous hall, throwing rose petals on the coffin. Some cried, others chanted Benazir is alive, as her body was laid to rest. One man sobbed uncontrollably, crying, "my sister has gone." Another fainted as several thousand people jostled to get a last glimpse.

Bhutto's son, Bilawal, and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, who wore a traditional white Sindhi cap and appeared composed, helped lift the coffin into the grave. An Islamic cleric led mourners in prayers.

A vast crowd congregated outside to pay its last respects, lining up in hundreds of rows for the prayers and later filing in to throw sand on the grave. They had arrived by tractors, buses, cars and jeeps that were parked in dusty fields surrounding the mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, where Bhutto's father, former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is also buried.

Draped in the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan People's Party, the coffin had been carried about five kilometers in a white ambulance from Bhutto's ancestral home to the vast marble mausoleum, passing a burning passenger train on the way.

Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, accompanied the closed coffin draped with the green, red and black tricolour of her Pakistan People's Party as it began the 7-km journey by ambulance to the family mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, a village in the southern province of Sindh.

The body of the opposition leader arrived in her family village for burial on Friday, hours after her assassination plunged the nuclear-armed country into one of the worst crises in its 60-year history.

Her killing on Thursday after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi triggered a wave of violence, especially in her native Sindh province, and stoked fears that a January 8 election meant to return Pakistan to civilian rule could be put off.

At least 16 people, including three policmen, have been killed in violent protests in Sindh province since Thursday's assassination, a provincial government minister said on Friday.

Sindh Interior Minister Akhtar Zaman said the toll of 16 covered the period from 6 p.m. on Thursday when violence erupted as word spread of Bhutto's killing after an election rally in Rawalpindi.

"We're anticipating the situation might get worse after the funeral," he told Reuters.

World leaders urged Pakistan not to be deflected from a course toward democracy, as fears of further instability in a region racked by Islamist militancy roiled markets on Friday and triggered a flight to less risky assets such as bonds and gold.

Bhutto, 54, had hoped the huge popular following she enjoyed among the Pakistani poor would propel her to power for the third time in an election meant to stabilize a country struggling to contain Islamist violence.

But as she left the campaign rally, where she had spoken of threats to her life, she stood to wave to supporters from the sun-roof of her bullet-proof vehicle. An attacker fired shots at her before blowing himself up, police and witnesses said.

She was pronounced dead in a hospital in Rawalpindi, home of the Pakistan army and the city where her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979 after being deposed by a military coup.

"It is the act of those who want Pakistan to disintegrate," said Farzana Raja, a senior official from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party. "They have finished the Bhutto family."

Across Pakistan, a country used to political violence and ruled by the military for more than half of its life, friends and foes alike were stunned by the death of a woman many had once criticized as a feudal leader buoyed by popular support while enjoying the riches of the family dynasty.

"People are very angry. They attacked banks and government offices. There were no police anywhere. Two shops selling weapons were also looted," said Larkana-based journalist Maula Baksh.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Bhutto's old political rival, said his party would boycott the January election.

He blamed President Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999 but recently retired from the army, for creating instability. "Free elections are not possible ... Musharraf is the root cause of all problems," he said.

Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November in what was seen as an attempt to stop the judiciary from vetoing his re-election as president. He lifted emergency rule this month.

In Karachi, thousands poured on to the streets on Thursday night to protest. Violence eased towards midnight after dozens of vehicles and several buildings were torched.

A Reuters reporter traveling through Sindh said on Friday he had seen hundreds of burnt-out vehicles, and people were coming out and setting fire to more and trying to block roads.

Authorities ordered the central bank and all schools to close for three days of mourning.

World leaders condemn attack

The United States, which relies on Pakistan as an ally against al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, had championed the Harvard- and Oxford-educated Bhutto, seeing in her the best hope of a return to democracy.

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," President George W. Bush said.

Bush telephoned Musharraf and urged Pakistanis to honour Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council voted Thursday unanimously to condemn the killing and urged all nations to "help bring those responsible for this reprehensible act to justice.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, who met Bhutto earlier on Thursday in Islamabad, said he was "deeply pained by the assassination of this brave sister of ours, a brave daughter of the Muslim world."

"She sacrificed her life, for the sake of Pakistan and for the sake of this region," he said. "I found in her this morning a lot of love and desire for peace in Afghanistan, for prosperity in Afghanistan and ... Pakistan."

From Iraq, a country that has struggled daily with terrorism and assassinations since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, President Jalal Talabani condemned Bhutto's killing and said "Pakistan had lost a courageous politician who stood firm against the forces of darkness and terror."

In a letter to Musharraf, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the attack an odious act and said terrorism and violence have no place in the democratic debate and the combat of ideas and programs.

Sarkozy said Bhutto had paid with her life her commitment to the service of her fellow citizens and to Pakistan's political life and urged Pakistan's elections be held as scheduled on January 8.

Analysts: Attack could hinder elections

Analysts said Bhutto's death, which followed a wave of suicide attacks and the worsening of an Islamist insurgency, could make it impossible to go ahead with the election.

"I think there is a very real possibility that Musharraf will decide that the situation has got out of control and that he needs to impose emergency rule again," said Farzana Shaikh from the Chatham House analysis group in London.

Musharraf condemned the Rawalpindi attack and called for calm.

"We will not sit and rest until we get rid of these terrorists, root them out," he said.

Bhutto's husband said the government should step down.

"We demand the immediate resignation of the government. Those who were responsible for the attack on Octoberare also responsible for this attack," he told Reuters by telephone.

He did not elaborate but referred to a letter Bhutto wrote to Musharraf before she returned to Pakistan in which she said if she were attacked, some of Musharraf's allies and a security agency would be responsible.

Kashmir police clash with hundreds protesting murder
Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir clashed Friday with hundreds
of stone-throwing demonstrators, protesting against the assassination, police said.

Police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators who took to the streets in Srinagar, the main city of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, after Friday prayers, said police officer Sajad Ahmed. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Many in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir want independence from mostly Hindu India or a union with mainly Muslim Pakistan.

Related articles:
  • Benazir Bhutto: The extremists will not prevail
  • At least 15 dead in Pakistan unrest in wake of Benazir Bhutto assassination
  • Michalis Firillas: A twin nuclear crisis in 2008?
  • Musharraf calls October strike on Bhutto convoy 'plot against democracy'
  • Bhutto prays at father's grave, visits stronghold amid tight security
  • Bhutto vows early return to Pakistan
  • Pakistani police place ex-PM Bhutto under house arrest to halt rally
  • Chronology of attacks in Pakistan since July 2007
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