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GHARI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan-Slain former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest in her family's ancestral tomb Friday amid the wails and tears of hundreds of thousands of mourners.A day after she was assassinated in a suicide attack at an election rally, the government said she died not from gunshot wounds or bomb shrapnel but when she smashed her head on her car's sunroof as she tried to duck.Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema also said intelligence services had intercepted a call Friday from a man considered to be Al-Qaeda's top figure for Pakistan congratulating a militant after Bhutto's death.Cheema said there was "irrefutable evidence that Al-Qaeda, its networks and cohorts are trying to destabilise Pakistan."Earlier, Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari(picture left with a wihte hat) wept as the coffin with the body of the 54-year-old opposition leader was lowered into the tomb at the three-domed mausoleum deep in Pakistan's rural south.Her son Bilawal appeared in a state of shock as a mullah led the throng in prayers and chants of "Allahu Akhbar" (God is Greater).Those outside beat their chest in grief, while many shouted slogans blaming President Pervez Musharraf for her death in the northern city of Rawalpindi.A huge roar had greeted her coffin, wrapped in the black, green and red of her Pakistan People's Party, as it was driven toward the Bhutto mausoleum.It took more than two hours to crawl the five kilometres (3.2 miles) from her family home to the village of Ghari Khuda Baksh where Bhutto's father-a former prime minister hanged by the military in 1979-and two brothers are also buried."It was tyrannical to kill her," railed another, Ghulam Nabi, adding, "She was innocent, she was the nation's leader and admired all over the world."The death of the first elected female leader of a Muslim nation has plunged nuclear-armed Pakistan into chaos, but the ministry said she would have lived if she had stayed inside her car.The bomber apparently fired three times at her but missed, Cheema said.As she ducked, she hit a lever of the sunroof of the car that was to speed her away from the campaign rally for January 8 general elections."The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull," Cheema said. "There was no bullet or metal shrapnel found in the injury."Officials previously said Bhutto was shot in the neck by the suicide bomber moments before he blew himself up, killing her and around 20 others.Cheema said the telephone call was from Baitullah Mehsud who he said was also behind a suicide attack on a Bhutto rally in October that left 139 dead.Pakistani authorities say Mehsud is based in the troubled tribal region of South Waziristan and is increasingly said to have links to Al-Qaeda.As authorities struggled to keep a lid on the violence that erupted across the country, officials ordered paramilitary forces in Karachi to shoot rioters on sight and sent troops into several other cities in the south.The scale of the unrest has paralysed Pakistan, sparking alarm bells around the world and throwing the January 8 elections into disarray.The rioting and political unrest has killed 32 people, according to a toll from officials after a spate of arson attacks, shootings and other violence.
Six people burned to death when a mob torched a factory in Karachi. It was not immediately known if they were among the 32.US President George W. Bush described the killing as a "cowardly act" and telephoned Musharraf-a crucial ally in the US-led "war on terror" against Islamic extremism-to urge Pakistan to stay on the path of democracy.The assassination also thrust US security concerns back into the spotlight on the political front, less than a week before first voting in the Democratic and Republican nominating contests.World stock markets slipped amid concerns over global stability, and crude oil futures climbed back toward 100 dollars a barrel.Pakistan's other leading opposition figure, Nawaz Sharif, pulled his party out of the vote, saying it would "destroy the country" if it went ahead."They are not going to be credible," he said of the vote. "We believe that Musharraf has no intention of holding free and fair elections, and yesterday was proof of that.""For now, the elections stand as they were announced. We'll take the next step after consulting political parties," interim prime minister Mohammedmian Soomro retorted.Bhutto first took the helm of Pakistan in 1988. She was ousted in 1990 amid corruption allegations but was premier again from 1993 to 1996.She was an outspoken critic of Al-Qaeda-linked militants blamed for scores of bombings in Pakistan and had received death threats.She had also accused elements from the intelligence services of involvement in the October bombing, which she only narrowly escaped after ducking down at the last moment.
As in the days of Noah....
