By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service 

KARACHI, PAKISTAN (ANS) – Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest before tens of thousands of mourners yesterday, as Pakistan’s Government accused al-Qaeda of killing her and heated bickering erupted over precisely how she died.

The Times Online reported that more than 30 people were killed as riots erupted across the country. Banks, police and railway stations, stores, factories, foreign fast-food outlets and vehicles were torched in cities throughout Pakistan.

Demonstrators exchanged gun-fire with police, aircraft were grounded, railway lines severed and roads blocked. Troops were on the streets of the main cities and, in Karachi, Bhutto’s stronghold, Times Online reported they had orders to shoot rioters.

Times Online reported that the Pakistani government fueled the anger by claiming that Bhutto was killed not by bullets or shrapnel, but by the impact of a suicide bomb smashing her head against the lever of her vehicle’s sunroof.

According to the Times Online, Farooq Naik, Bhutto’s lawyer, called the claim a “pack of lies” designed to cover up a serious security lapse, and said that the country was “heading towards civil war.”

The Interior Ministry released what it described as a transcript of an intercepted call in which Baitullah Mehsud, an Islamic militant with ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, congratulated a colleague on the assassination.

Times Online reported the transcript suggested that three men were involved in the operation, and two actually carried it out. The transcript quoted Mehsud saying, “It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.”

The Interior Ministry also released photographs of the mutilated head of the alleged suicide bomber, Times Online reported, and a grainy video showing the moments leading up to the assassination.

Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari said she had left a message for the party about its future in the event of her death which would be read out tomorrow by her son.

“She has left a message for the party and she has left a will so we shall be doing that tomorrow after the third day (of official mourning),” Times Online reported he told BBC Radio 4’s Today program.

“We have called for a meeting, and her will will be read out there and the instructions she has left will be read out there.”

He said she had made preparations in minute detail - including changing her choice of burial place from his family’s ancestral graveyard to that of hers in the wake of a previous suicide bomb attack.

Asked if he would succeed her as party leader, the Times Online reported he said, “It depends on the party and depends on the will.”

His wife had meant “much more than life” to him, Times Online reported he said.

He added, “I have seen many tragedies in my life…but nothing has devastated me more than this has. We were always aware of the dangers she faced but somehow we were hoping that we would succeed and they would not - the terrorists and the people who back these terrorists.”

Mohammed Mian Soomro, Pakistan’s acting Prime Minister, said that there were no plans to postpone the general election scheduled for January 8, despite the violence and boycotts announced by leading political parties.

The Times Online said that Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, hailed Bhutto as a “champion for democracy” while signing a book of condolence at Pakistan’s embassy in Washington. She said, “The way to honor her memory is to continue the democratic process in Pakistan so that the democracy that she so hoped for can emerge.”

The country was braced last night for even worse violence after Ms Bhutto’s burial in the family mausoleum in the town of Larkana, in Sindh province. Approximately 100,000 weeping and wailing supporters attended her funeral, many of them chanting anti-Musharraf slogans.