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RAWALPINDI, Pakistan : Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a stunning suicide attack on Thursday that plunged the Muslim nation deeper into crisis and sparked alarm around the world.
Less than two weeks before general elections, a suicide bomber pierced her security cordon to shoot her in the neck as she left a campaign rally. He then blew himself up, killing at least 20 people, police and party officials said.
The powerful blast tore off limbs and shredded clothes. Many people ran in panic, screaming as they trampled over pieces of human flesh. Puddles of blood dotted the road.
"There was an enormous explosion, and then I saw body parts flying through the air," said Mirza Fahin, a professor at a local college.
"When the dust cleared, I saw mutilated bodies lying in blood. I have never seen anything so horrible in my life - just parts of human beings, flesh, lying in the road."
The slaying horrified world leaders who appealed for calm and warned that extremists must not be allowed to destabilise the nuclear-armed nation before the January 8 vote.
US President George W. Bush called it a "cowardly act" and telephoned his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf - a crucial ally in the US-led "war on terror" against Islamic extremism - to discuss the crisis.
Violence erupted in cities across Pakistan as mobs went on the rampage in a wave of anger that left at least 10 people dead and dozens wounded, officials said.
Police and paramilitary forces were put on the highest "red alert" level.
Musharraf, who announced three days of national mourning, urged people to remain peaceful "so that the evil designs of terrorists can be defeated."
But the attack raises questions about whether the election can go ahead, as well as speculation that Musharraf may re-impose the emergency rule he ended earlier this month.
Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and Bhutto's biggest political rival, said he would boycott the election and urged Musharraf to resign to "save" the country.
"I demand that Musharraf quit power, without delay of a single day, to save Pakistan," he told reporters, calling for a nationwide strike.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing, but Bhutto had previously accused elements in the intelligence services of trying to kill her and said she had also received death threats from Islamic militant groups including Al-Qaeda.
"The attacker fired and then blew himself up," said one police official who asked not to be named.
"She was waving to the crowd from the sunroof of her car and then there was a blast," Bhutto spokesman Farhatullah Babar told state television.
Bhutto, 54, became the first ever female prime minister of a Muslim nation when she took the helm in 1988 for the first of her two premierships.
Her father, also a prime minister, was hanged by the military in 1979 after being ousted from power.
Educated at Oxford and Harvard, Bhutto's return here in October after eight years of self-exile brought hopes of a power-sharing deal with Musharraf.
That optimism was quickly shattered.
Her welcome home parade was hit in the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, killing 139 people, while her talks with Musharraf ended in acrimony after he declared emergency rule on November 3.
As Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari flew in from Dubai, sources said that her funeral was likely to take place on Friday in Larkana, her home town deep in the rural south.
There were frenzied scenes as hundreds of people mobbed her simple wooden coffin as it was borne uneasily out of the hospital to a waiting ambulance for the journey to the airport.
It had a piece of clear plastic or glass in the lid that allowed people to see her body, wrapped in a white shroud.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Bhutto's party successor and Zardari by telephone to press US support for the elections to go ahead, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
World leaders swiftly condemned what neighbour India called an "abominable act."
"The US strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," Bush told reporters.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon described it as a "heinous crime," and the UN Security Council condemned the "terrorist suicide attack" after meeting in emergency session to discuss the crisis.
Britain called for Pakistanis to show restraint and unity.
But unrest broke out in Karachi, Bhutto's stronghold, where demonstrators torched scores of vehicles and blocked key roads; in Peshawar in the northwest where police used tear gas and batons to break up crowds; and in the central city of Multan.
Some protesters fired into the air, while others shouted slogans including "Musharraf is a dog." Violence broke out in other towns including Jacobabad in the south, where shops belonging to relatives of interim premier Mohammedmian Soomro were set alight. - AFP/ac/de
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