Pakistan accuses al Qaeda of killing Bhutto

By Faisal Aziz

GARHI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest next to her father in the family mausoleum on Friday after the opposition leader's assassination plunged Pakistan into crisis and triggered violent protests.

Pakistan's government said it had evidence al Qaeda was responsible for killing Bhutto in a suicide attack at an election rally on Thursday, but her party dismissed the claim.

The 54-year-old's death stoked fears a January 8 election meant to return Pakistan to civilian rule could be put off amid a backlash threatening to engulf embattled President Pervez Musharraf.

"We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination," an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Mehsud, based near the Afghan border, is one of Pakistan's most wanted militant leaders.

But a spokesman for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party rejected the official explanation.

"The government is nervous," he said. "They are trying to cover up their failure" to provide adequate security.

Troops were called out to quell protests in Bhutto's home province of Sindh, where she had huge support, particularly among the rural poor. Officials said 31 people, including four policemen, had been killed since Bhutto's assassination.

Tens of thousands of mourners cried and beat their heads as Bhutto was borne from her ancestral home to the domed mausoleum.

Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, wept as he accompanied her coffin, draped with the green, red and black tricolor of her party, on the 7-km (4-mile) journey to the tomb in the dusty village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.

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

Many mourners chanted slogans against Musharraf and the United States, which has long backed the former army general in the hope he can maintain stability in the nuclear-armed country racked by Islamist violent.

"Shame on the killer Musharraf, shame on the killer U.S.," mourners cried.

Others wept in despair. "Bhutto was my sister and Bhutto was like my mother," cried farmer Imam Baksh. "With her death, the world has ended for us."

Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999 but left the army last month to become a civilian president, has appealed for calm and blamed Islamist militants for the killing.

But many accused him of failing to protect Bhutto, who died in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home of the Pakistani army.