Rumblings Of Unrest Follow Bhutto's Death

The body of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was carried out of a hospital in a plain wooden coffin by a crowd of her supporters on Thursday, following her assassination in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Link: CNN Coverage

The 54-year-old former prime minister was killed as she left a campaign rally. Witnesses said her attacker first fired a gun at her before blowing himself up. She was rushed to an area hospital for emergency surgery, but died about an hour later.

Bhutto's remains were expected to be transferred to an air base and taken to her hometown of Larkana.

A doctor on the team that treated Bhutto said she had a bullet in the back of the neck that damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head. Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest.

At least 20 others were also killed in the attack, which came ahead of parliamentary elections next month in which Bhutto's party was expected to do well.

Her death leaves her party without a leader and the election schedule in doubt.

An official at Pakistan's Interior Ministry said shortly after Bhutto's death that Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf convened an emergency meeting with his senior staff to discuss whether to postpone the election.

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif said his party would boycott the elections.

Supporters Turn Violent

Meanwhile, Pakistan rumbled with grief and fury after the assassination. Angry supporters took to the streets in the northwestern city of Peshawar as well other areas, attacking police and burning vehicles and tires.

At the hospital where Bhutto died, some backers smashed glass and chanted slogans against Musharraf, accusing him of complicity in her killing.

In televised speeches, Musharraf condemned the assassination, announced three days of mourning, blamed terrorists for her death, and said he would redouble his efforts to fight them.

Musharraf also appealed for calm in the streets, but Sharif, the leader of a rival opposition party, told mourners at the hospital that he would help them "take the revenge for her death."

Bhutto was killed just a few miles from the scene of her father's violent death 28 years earlier. He was executed by hanging in 1979 on charges of conspiracy to murder that supporters say were politically motivated by the then-military regime.

She served twice as Pakistan's prime minister between 1988 and 1996, and she had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year exile on Oct. 18, saying she knew she risked death.

Her homecoming parade in Karachi was also targeted by a suicide attacker, who killed more than 140 people. She narrowly escaped injury.

U.N. Seeks 'Restraint'

The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the assassination and urged all nations to help bring those responsible to justice.

After a two-hour emergency session, it described Bhutto's killing as a threat to international peace and security and said it "calls on all Pakistanis to exercise restraint and maintain stability in the country."

U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, called Bhutto a close personal friend and "courageous figure" whose death now poses a threat to Pakistan's democratic process.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "shocked and outraged" by Bhutto's assassination.

U.N. officials said they did not discuss whether Pakistan's government could have done more to protect Bhutto.

The U.S. State Department issued a statement condemning the attack Thursday.

"Certainly, we condemn the attack on this rally," said deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey. "It demonstrates that there are still those in Pakistan who want to subvert reconciliation and efforts to advance democracy."

For months, the United States has been encouraging Musharraf to reach some kind of political accommodation with his opponents, particularly Bhutto.

President George W. Bush, speaking from his Crawford, Texas, ranch, sent his condolences to Bhutto's family and to the families of those who were killed.

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists," Bush said. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."