Al-Qaida figure behind attack, Pakistan says

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.”

But Sharif, deposed by Musharraf in the 1999 coup, said his party would boycott the elections and blamed Musharraf for the instability.

Mourners at Bhutto's grave site in the town of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh had the same reaction.

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, although he lacks the cachet of a blood relative.

“I don’t know what will happen to the country now,” said mourner Nazakat Soomro, 32.

Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, wept as he accompanied her coffin, draped with the green, red and black tricolor of her Pakistan People's Party, on the 4-mile procession to the tomb.

Zardari then prayed there with the couple’s three children, son Bilawal, 19, and daughters Bakhtawar, 17 and Aseefa, 14.

Many crammed inside the Bhutto family mausoleum and threw rose 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 and her husband 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 riot
In related violence, 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.

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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.

Earlier, mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Bhutto’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 India, he said.

About 4,000 Bhutto supporters rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar and several hundred ransacked the empty office of the main pro-Musharraf party, burning furniture and stationery.

Protesters shouted “Musharraf dog” and “Bhutto was alive yesterday, Bhutto is alive today.” Dozens of police in riot gear followed the protesters but did not intervene.

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