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Benazir Bhutto visits ancestral home

Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was traveling to her ancestral home yesterday amid tight security in her first public trip since suicide bombers shattered her homecoming parade.

Bhutto flew into Sukkur city, about 600km north of Karachi, where thousands of supporters waved flags in her party colors and chanted "Long Live Bhutto" outside the airport.

The former prime minister was showered with rose petals as she moved slowly out of the airport in a white, bullet-proof jeep for the short drive to her ancestral village.

Bhutto smiled and stood waving to supporters through the sunroof of the jeep as private security guards gathered around, a correspondent said.

"I am happy and delighted to be visiting my home town," she told reporters at the airport. "There is a lot of security for me, but I am worried about common people because they don't have enough security," she said.

Bhutto had been hunkered down in her Karachi home since last week's blasts, which targeted the former prime minister and killed 139 supporters who had gathered on streets to welcome her return after eight years in self-imposed exile.

Bhutto has vowed to stay in Pakistan despite the carnage in Karachi and lead her party in upcoming general elections, which are seen as a key step to the nation's return to democracy after eights years of military rule.

She is expected to pay her respects at the family mausoleum in Ghari Khuda Baksh village, near Larkana town, where her father, the late prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was buried.

He was usurped and hanged in 1979 by a military dictator.

"She will be arriving in her home district on Saturday to receive a tumultuous welcome and to pay homage to her father, shaheed [martyr] Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto," party spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.

The site is also the resting place of Benazir Bhutto's two brothers -- Shahnawaz, who was poisoned in southern France in 1987, and Murtaza, shot dead in Karachi in 1996.

"We have taken extensive security measures and deployed police to protect her and maintain order," senior local police officer Mazar Sheikh said.

Hundreds of locals are expected to throng to see Bhutto during her trip, which was delayed by the Oct. 18 bombings and again after she caught flu.

Massive security preparations have surrounded the visit, with her party saying there were threats to target her wherever she goes.

Bhutto has rarely stepped outside her Karachi home since the blasts, emerging only on Sunday to visit some of those injured in the blasts and the next day to the tomb of Pakistan's founder.

The attacks happened just hours after Bhutto set foot on Pakistani soil for the first time since 1999 and shattered her planned triumphant return to contest the elections set for early January.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, with Bhutto alleging a link to rogue elements in the establishment and a pro-Taliban militant denying his involvement.

She was cleared of graft charges by President Pervez Musharraf earlier this month, paving the way for her return and a possible power-sharing pact with the general, who seized power in a coup in 1999.

The US and Britain have been quietly pushing the pact as the best chance of fighting Islamic extremism gathering force in Pakistan and for political stability in the nation of 160 million people.

For her supporters in Pakistan, the attraction is simpler.

"It will be a day of fulfilment for us. We have been waiting for this day. She is our leader, the daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto," said Rasool, a laborer from Larkana who goes by one name.

"We will welcome her from the core of our hearts," he added.
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