Violent backlash kills 33 across Pakistan

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As her husband wept bitterly by the graveside and vast crowds of mourners beat their chests in grief, Benazir Bhutto was finally laid to rest yesterday.

Rioting and political violence following the assassination of Benazir killed 33 people.

Hundreds of thousands of people let out a huge roar as the former premier’s body arrived at the family mausoleum in the village of Ghari Khuda Baksh in the southern province of Sindh.

Inside the imposing three-domed mausoleum a cleric led funeral prayers, while the crowds raised their hands in front of their faces and chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) three times.

Tears rolled down the cheeks of Benazir’s husband Asif Zardari as her coffin was lowered into the grave, while her son Bilawal appeared in a state of shock.

Outside the building the crowds chanted slogans blaming President Pervez Musharraf for Benazir’s death in a suicide attack at a campaign rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi on Thursday.

“Destroy Musharraf, He Killed Our Leader” and “We Are Orphans, Thank God Benazir was Innocent”, they chanted.

In a violent backlash Benazir Bhutto’s supporters rampaged through cities yesterday to protest her assassination less than two weeks before a crucial election, ransacking banks and setting train stations ablaze, officials said.

The killing of Musharraf’s most powerful political opponent plunged Pakistan into turmoil and badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed US ally.

Angry Benazir supporters ran amok through the streets after her assassination, lighting cars and stores on fire in violence that killed at least 32 people. The attack on Benazir also killed 20 others.

A remote-controlled bomb killed four people including a politician from the main party backing President Musharraf in northwest Pakistan’s Swat Valley yesterday, police said.

No other details were immediately available, but security forces have been battling pro-Taliban militants in the restive valley for months.

Twenty-three people have died in clashes and protests in Benazir’s political heartland of southern Sindh province since her killing Thursday, provincial home secretary Ghulam Mohammad Mohtaram said.

The army had been deployed in 16 districts of Sindh, including the main city Karachi, he said.

Another eight people died in a bomb blast in North West Frontier Province, including a member of Musharraf’s former ruling party, police said.

The remote-controlled bomb exploded as the pro-Musharraf candidate left a political rally in a suburb of Mingora, the main town in the troubled Swat Valley, which has been wracked by violence in recent months.

A security official said one person had also died in central Punjab province.

In Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, protesters burned down a shopping plaza and set tyres ablaze, AFP correspondents on the scene said.

AL-QAEDA CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY

The al-Qaeda terror group yesterday claimed responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Adnkronos International (AKI) news agency reported.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat (the) Mujahadeen,” it quoted al-Qaeda commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid as saying in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English.

According to the agency, Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

“It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto…was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October,” AKI said.

“Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto,” it added.

SHOOT-ON-SIGHT ORDERS

IN KARACHI

In Karachi, Pakistani paramilitary forces in the southern city of Karachi were Friday ordered to shoot rioters on sight to prevent unrest after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a paramilitary officer said.

“Paramilitary Rangers have been given orders to shoot on sight if they see miscreants indulging in anti-state activities, attacking government property or setting on fire private property,” Major Athar Ali told reporters.

He said the force had deployed 16,000 troops in southern Sindh province, 10,000 of them in Karachi alone.

A mob in Karachi looted three banks and set them on fire, 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 quarter of the city.

Violent mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Benazir’s Sindh province, forcing the suspension of all train service between the city of Karachi and the eastern Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railroad official. The rioters uprooted one section of the track leading to the Indian border, he said.

About 4,000 Benazir party supporters rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday and several hundred of them ransacked the office of the main pro-Musharraf party, burning furniture and stationery. The office was empty and no one was hurt.

Protesters, carrying the green, red and black flags of Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party shouted “Musharraf dog” and “Benazir was alive yesterday, Benazir is alive today.” In Peshawar, protesters also burned the office of a small party allied with Musharraf.

Other areas were nearly deserted Friday morning as businesses closed and public transportation came to a halt at the start of three days of national mourning for the opposition leader.

“The repercussions of her murder will continue to unfold for months, even years,” read a mournful editorial in the Dawn newspaper. “What is clear is that Pakistan’s political landscape will never be the same, having lost one of its finest daughters.”

As many Pakistanis mourned, others demanded answers as to who killed her.

Musharraf blamed the attack on the resurgent Islamic militants Pakistan is fighting along the border region with Afghanistan, pledging in a nationally televised speech that “we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out.”

But authorities said they had yet to identify the attacker.

“It is too early to say who may have been responsible,” said Saud Aziz, the chief of police in Rawalpindi, the city near Islamabad where the attack took place. A joint task force of police and officials from other law enforcement agencies were investigating, he said.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said the agency was trying to determine the validity of a purported claim of responsibility for the attack by al-Qaeda.

In the wake of the killing, Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and leader of a rival opposition party, announced his party would boycott the elections.

The election was seen as a pivotal step toward restoring democracy here, eight years after Musharraf seized power in a coup. It also was intended to restore credibility to the government after Musharraf used a six-week state of emergency to arrest thousands of political opponents and crack down on the independent judiciary.

However, with Sharif’s party on the sidelines and Benazir’s party leaderless and in disarray, the election will have little, if any, credibility.

“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.”

Sharif demanded Musharraf’s resignation. “Musharraf is the cause of all the problems,” Sharif said.

Benazir had just addressed more than 5,000 supporters in Rawalpindi on Thursday when the attacker struck as she was leaving the rally in a white sports utility vehicle.

A smiling Benazir had stuck her head out of the sunroof to respond to youths chanting her name, said Sardar Qamar Hayyat, an official from Benazir’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,” Hayyat said.

Benazir was rushed into emergency surgery, but died from her gunshot wounds. Another 20 people were killed in the bombing, according to police and witnesses.

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