Pakistan Unrest Leaves at Least 10 Dead

Source: Associated Press

Pakistan unrest leaves at least 10 dead
By SADAQAT JAN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto's supporters rampaged through cities Friday to protest her assassination less than two weeks before a crucial election, ransacking banks and setting train stations ablaze, officials said. The killing of President Pervez Musharraf's most powerful political opponent plunged Pakistan into turmoil and badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed U.S. ally.

Angry Bhutto supporters ran amok through the streets after her assassination, lighting cars and stores on fire in violence that killed at least 10 people. The attack on Bhutto also killed 20 others.

Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said Friday the government had no immediate plan to postpone Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, 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."

Bhutto was to be buried Friday afternoon in the family's ancestral village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, next to the grave of her father, also a popular opposition political leader who met a violent death, said Nazir Dhoki, a spokesman for Bhutto's party.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071228/ap_on_re_as/pakistan

Violence flared in Pakistan on Friday as angry supporters of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto took to the streets a day after she was killed in a suicide attack, witnesses and police said.

A "shoot on sight" order was issued in Bhutto's home province of Sindh after unidentified gunmen shot dead a policeman and wounded three in the southern city of Karachi.

"Yes, shoot on sight anybody who wants to damage the life of innocent citizens and public property," provincial Interior Minister Akhtar Zaman told Reuters on Friday.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL307147.htm

Hundreds in Indian Kashmir protest Bhutto's killing
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL311544.htm
India orders "high state of vigil" on Pakistan border
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL278917.htm

well, gee, when you've just taken out your biggest opponent, not canceling the elections is really a moot point. :eyes: :puke: