Pakistan's Bhutto released from house arrest

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was freed from house arrest late on Friday, hours after she was stopped from leaving her Islamabad home to lead a rally against the president's imposition of emergency rule.

"The detention order has been withdrawn," said Aamir Ali Ahmed, acting deputy commissioner of Islamabad.

A security official said police barricades around Bhutto's home were being taken down. A spokeswoman for Bhutto's party, Sherry Rehman, said she had no information about the lifting of the order.

Earlier in the day police prevented Bhutto from leaving her home and sealed off the capital and the nearby city of Rawalpindi to stop a rally against President Pervez Musharraf.

Bhutto, the politician most capable of galvanizing mass protests against army chief Musharraf, had appealed to police to let her through their cordon.

"The government has been paralyzed," Bhutto shouted to supporters across a barbed-wire barricade.

"If he restores the constitution, takes off his uniform, gives up the office of the chief of army staff and announces an election by January 15, then it's OK," she said, vowing defiance if Musharraf did not comply.

Police wielded batons and fired teargas to break up small protests in several parts of the country.

Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless 1999 coup, imposed emergency rule last Saturday citing a hostile judiciary and rising militancy in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.

But on Thursday he said elections would be held by February 15, about a month later than they were due.

He also said he would quit as army chief and be sworn in as a civilian president once new judges appointed to the Supreme Court struck down challenges against his re-election.

Bhutto has been holding power-sharing talks with Musharraf for months and political analysts say that cooperation between them is still possible despite Bhutto's defiance.

But it remains to be seen whether Musharraf can control events set in train by his shock decision to impose emergency rule and suspend the constitution.

INCREASINGLY ISOLATED

Under fire abroad from Western allies and under pressure at home from an angry Bhutto, he has become increasingly isolated, fuelling concern about instability.