Benazir buried beside father's grave

---

GARHI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan (AP): Hundreds of thousands of mourners paid last respects to Benazir Bhutto as the opposition leader was buried Friday at the mausoleum of Pakistan's most famous political dynasty. Furious supporters rampaged through several cities to protest her assassination.
Some wept, others chanted "Benazir is alive," as the plain wood coffin was placed beside the grave of her father in the vast, white marble mausoleum.
The shooting and bombing attack on the former prime minister - President Pervez Musharraf's most powerful political opponent - plunged Pakistan into turmoil and badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed nation, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror.
In cities elsewhere in Pakistan, Benazir 's supporters ransacked banks, waged shootouts with police and burned trains and stations in a spasm of violence less than two weeks before parliamentary elections.
Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said the government had no immediate plans to postpone the January 8 vote, 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."
Benazir 's mourners arrived in the southern town of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh by tractor, bus, car and jeep. Many crammed inside the mausoleum and threw petals toward the ambulance that bore her 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 as her flag-draped coffin was placed in a grave beside her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also a popular former prime minister who met a violent death.
Some mourners blamed President Pervez Musharraf's government for Benazir 's death. Others said they felt adrift and hollow.
"I don't know what will happen to the country now," said Nazakat Soomro, 32.
Benazir 's funeral procession began Friday afternoon at her ancestral residence in the southern town of Naudero. Her plain wood coffin, draped in the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan People's Party, was carried in the white ambulance, passing a burning passenger train on the way.
Benazir 's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and her three children arrived from Dubai to attend the funeral, party officials said.
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.
"We have orders to shoot at sight," he said.
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 "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.
"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."
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-Qaida.
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.