World outraged, fearful over Bhutto assassination

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 28 (Agencies): Benazir Bhutto's supporters rampaged through cities Friday to protest her assassination less than two weeks before a crucial election, ransacking banks and setting train stations ablaze, officials saidThe killing of President Pervez Musharraf's most powerful political opponent plunged Pakistan into turmoil and badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed US ally.
Angry Bhutto supporters ran amok through the streets after her assassination, lighting cars and stores on fire in violence that killed at least 10 people. The attack on Bhutto also killed 20 others.
Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said Friday the government had no immediate plan to postpone Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, despite the growing chaos and a top opposition leader's decision to boycott the poll.
In southern Pakistan, the funeral procession for Bhutto began Friday afternoon, local media reported. Footage shown on local television networks showed her plain wood coffin being carried by supporters in her hometown of Garhi Khuda Baksh.
Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and her three children arrived from Dubai to attend the funeral, Dhoki said, sobbing with grief during a telephone interview.
Violence intensified in some cities Friday. 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.
Paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live fire to stop rioters from damaging property in southern Pakistan, said Maj. Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman.
Violent 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 the Indian border, he said.
About 4,000 Bhutto party supporters rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar 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 Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party shouted "Musharraf dog" and "Bhutto was alive yesterday, Bhutto 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.
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."
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-Qaida.
President Bush, who spoke briefly by phone with Musharraf, looked tense as he spoke to reporters, denouncing the "murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy."
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.
Bhutto's death closed another grim chapter in Pakistan's bloodstained history, 28 years after her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, another ex-prime minister, was hanged by a military dictatorship just a few miles from where she was killed.
Another report from London adds: World leaders voiced outrage at the assassination Thursday of Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and expressed fears for the fate of the nuclear-armed state US President George W. Bush condemned the killing as a "cowardly act" and urged Pakistanis to go ahead with a planned election. Russian President Vladimir Putin called it "a barbaric act of terrorism" that was a challenge to the world.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Bhutto had risked everything to try and bring democracy to her country, of which Britain used to be the colonial ruler.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the killing odious."France, like the European Union, is particularly attached to stability and democracy in Pakistan," he said in a letter to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.
The US ally has been struggling to contain Islamist violence while Musharraf, whose popularity has slumped, only lifted a state of emergency on December 15 after six weeks.
Bush urged Pakistanis to honor Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process and said those behind the attack must be brought to justice.
"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," he told reporters at his Texas ranch.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the assassination was a "heinous crime" and an "assault on stability" in Pakistan.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Union's executive arm, the European Commission, said it was "an attack against democracy and against Pakistan."
The 53-nation Commonwealth, which suspended Pakistan over the emergency rule declaration, said the assassination was "a dark day for Pakistan and the Commonwealth."
Saudi King Abdullah said the attackers were "wicked murderers who are distant from Islam and morals."
Iran's foreign ministry condemned the attack and urged calm and stability in Pakistan. A Vatican spokesman said Pope Benedict had been informed, adding: