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Published on December 29, 2007

Al-Qaeda militants and the Taleban were behind the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, a top official said yesterday.

Bhutto was buried in her ancestral home amid an outpouring of grief by hundreds of thousands of mourners.

Bhutto's assassination on Thursday plunged the country deep into turmoil and ignited widespread violence. At least 30 people were killed, and the government sent military troops into the streets of several major cities to maintain order, security officials said.

Bhutto's furious supporters in other cities ransacked banks, waged shootouts with police and burnt train stations in a frightening spasm of violence less than two weeks before a crucial election.

Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said: "We have the evidence that al-Qaeda and the Taleban were behind the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto." He said investigators had resolved the case and would give details at a press conference later yesterday.

Prime Minister Mohamme-dmian Soomro said the government had no immediate plans to postpone the January 8 parliamentary elections, despite the growing chaos and a top opposition leader's decision to boycott the poll.

Bhutto's mourners arrived in the town of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh by tractor, bus, car and jeep. Many crammed inside the mausoleum and threw petals towards the ambulance. Women beat their heads and chests in grief.

 An Islamic cleric led mourners in prayers, and Bhutto's son Bilawal and her husband Asif Ali Zardari helped lift the coffin into the grave beside that of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a popular former prime minister who met a violent death. Thousands of supporters then filed in to shovel earth onto the grave.

It took more than two hours to crawl the five kilometres from her ancestral home in Naudero to Ghari Khuda Baksh, where Bhutto's two brothers are also buried. Bhutto was killed after a suicide attacker shot at her and then blew himself up as she left a rally in Rawalpindi, police and witnesses said. Authorities initially said she had died from bullet wounds, but Dr Mussadiq Khan, a surgeon who treated her, said yesterday that she had died from shrapnel that hit her on the right side of the skull. Bhutto had no heart beat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital, and doctors failed in their efforts to resuscitate her, he said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said,  "No bullet was found in her body."

Soomro told the Cabinet yesterday that Bhutto's husband had not allowed doctors to perform an autopsy, according to a government statement.

Agencies

GARHI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan

The Nation