Bhutto's death stokes regional rivalry

When vast crowds paid their last respects to Benazir Bhutto before her burial, angry mourners from her native Sindh province chanted separatist slogans: "We don't want to be part of Pakistan!"

Although Bhutto, a two-time prime minister and leader of the country's biggest party, was an icon of Pakistani nationalism, her violent death in the heart of Punjab province has laid bare bitter regional rivalries in a nation carved out of the subcontinent after British colonial rule ended 60 years ago.

Many among the ethnically distinct peoples in Pakistan's three minority provinces harbor deep resentment toward the most populous province of Punjab, which dominates the government, military and allocation of federal resources.

Aside from bubbling tensions in Sindh, Pakistan is grappling with outright separatist rebellion in the deserts of Baluchistan, as well as escalating militancy in the North West Frontier province near Afghanistan.

A breakup of the federation is unlikely, but Bhutto's slaying touched a particularly raw nerve as she was the third Pakistani prime minister from Sindh to have died a violent death. The Islamic nation's first premier, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead in 1951, and her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was executed in 1979 for allegedly conspiring to kill a rival.

All three died in Rawalpindi, the garrison city of the Punjabi-dominated army _ a fact not lost on the thousands who gathered for Benazir's funeral at her ancestral home, where she was buried beside her father. Bhutto herself had also claimed elements of the Punjabi-dominated ruling party were seeking to kill her, claims that it denied.