Al Qaeda militant did not kill Bhutto: spokesman
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Supporters of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto crowd around an ambulance carrying her body during her funeral procession in Garhi Khuda Bukhsh [File photo]. (Reuters: Zahid Hussein)
Al Qaeda-linked Pakistani militant Baitullah Mehsud was not involved in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, his spokesman says.
"I strongly deny it. Tribal people have their own customs. We don't strike women," Mehsud's spokesman Maulvi Omar said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The Pakistan Government said on Friday that Mehsud was responsible for Ms Bhutto's killing as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.
Cities shut down
Daily life for tens of millions of Pakistanis is on hold, with major cities virtually shut down as the nation mourns the assassination of Ms Bhutto.
On the second day of official mourning for the slain opposition leader, most people were unable to buy food or petrol, with all shops, fuel stations, banks and offices closed down.
The streets of the country's main cities - Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Peshawar - were largely empty, and in many places there was evidence of the unrest that has left more than 30 dead since Ms Bhutto's killing.
Burnt-out cars littered the streets in the southern town of Larkana, a Bhutto stronghold where groups of her supporters were roaming the streets shouting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.
The situation was tense in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and the economic hub of this nation of 160 million people, with a heavy army and paramilitary presence on the streets.
Few people dared to venture outside and even the country's largest private charity, the Edhi Foundation, said its ambulances had been wrecked by vandals.
"They've smashed up our ambulances and we don't have any fuel," a foundation official in Karachi told AFP.
With the fuel shortage, the unrest and the official mourning period which ends on Sunday night (local time) following Ms Bhutto's murder on Thursday, most people were unable or unwilling to move about.
Buses were not running, few taxi drivers were working and the roads were dotted with vehicles left behind when they ran out of petrol, AFP reporters said.
Graveside visit
Meanwhile, Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif is heading to the grave of his assassinated counterpart to pay his respects, his spokesman said.
Mr Sharif was to leave from his stronghold in the eastern city of Lahore with a delegation of around 50 party officials for Ms Bhutto's resting place in the southern village of Ghari Khuda Baksh.
"The purpose is to personally convey his condolences to the Bhutto family," his spokesman Siddiqul Farooq said.
Ms Bhutto was buried alongside her father, former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in her family's imposing white mausoleum on Saturday amid wails of grief from hundreds of thousands of supporters.
Mr Sharif told AFP on Friday that Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, asked him not to attend the funeral because of security fears.
Both Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto were two-time prime ministers of Pakistan.
Formerly bitter political rivals, they had formed a loose alliance ahead of elections scheduled on January 8.
- AFP/Reuters
