If the govt fails to control the situation we heading for point of no return. 
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22983314-601,00.html
Pakistan on brink of civil war
Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | December 29, 2007
SLAIN opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest in her family crypt last night as the shock of her assassination drew angry crowds on to the streets of Pakistan for riots that threatened to push the country into civil war.
With al-Qa’ida claiming responsibility for a murder that has provoked the most serious crisis in the 60-year history of the nuclear-armed country, President Pervez Musharraf was under intense pressure from Washington to ensure Pakistan returned to democracy through elections scheduled for January 8.
But Mr Musharraf, who has become a key ally in the war on terror, was facing a furious backlash from his own people, with mobs chanting “Killer Musharraf, go” as they set fire togovernment offices, shops and cars.
At least 19 were killed and scores wounded as police and paramilitary forces opened fire in an attempt to halt the violence that has engulfed Pakistan since the murder of Ms Bhutto on Thursday night.
Despite al-Qa’ida claiming the assassination was carried out on the orders of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command, much of the anger was directed at Pakistan’s military-backed ruler.
Demonstrators blamed Mr Musharraf and the army for failing to provide sufficient security to prevent a lone assassin first launching a gun attack and then triggering a suicide bomb as Ms Bhutto campaigned in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home to the headquarters of Pakistan’s military.
Analysts say Mr Musharraf is unlikely to have ordered the killing, but elements of the army and intelligence service, the ISI, stood to lose power if she became prime minister for a third time.
Anger intensified last night when it emerged that Ms Bhutto, 54, had two months ago sent an email to a US adviser saying that if she were killed, Mr Musharraf would have to bear some of theblame. “Nothing will, God willing, happen,” she wrote to Mark Siegel, her US spokesman, “Just wanted u to know if it does … I would hold Musharaf (sic) responsible.”
Mr Musharraf was insistent that the blame for the killing lay with Islamic extremists opposed to Ms Bhutto’s pro-Western stance. “This brutality is the handiwork of those terrorists against whom we are fighting,” he said as he declared three days of national mourning.
But members of Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party claimed electronic jamming equipment provided by the Government to prevent a suicide attack had proved faulty and evidence from the murder scene had been lost after government agents ordered the area be washed clean.
Political scientist Rasul Baksh Rais, of Lahore University, described the assassination as “the most serious setback for democracy in Pakistan”.
“Musharraf’s main concern now will be to maintain law and order and make sure this does not turn into a major movement against him,” he said.
Last night, however, there were indications that was happening. “People are on the streets everywhere smashing things up. There’s trouble all over Pakistan,” a senior police officer said.
As troops were issued with orders to shoot protesters on sight and a revenge bomb attack left four of Mr Musharraf’s supporters dead, Ms Bhutto’s body was borne in a simple wooden coffin to her family home at Naudero, deep in the agricultural interior of the southern Sindh province.
Several hundred thousand mourners gathered for the funeral, with the body interred next to that of the father she adored, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged by the military almost 30 years ago on a gibbet in Rawalpindi central prison.
Ms Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and three teenage children, Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa, accompanied the coffin to the tomb, which also contains the remains of her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, both of whom died in mysterious circumstances.
Last night, as Mr Musharraf held crisis meetings with security advisers, there was no immediate indication of whether the election, which Ms Bhutto was well placed to win, would proceed.
Sources in Islamabad told The Weekend Australian that caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro had been instructed by Mr Musharraf to summon a conference of all political parties to discuss the issue and indicated that he would abide by whatever was decided.
A spokesman in Washington said President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – who had encouraged Ms Bhutto to end her eight years in exile to fight the election – had telephoned Mr Musharraf following the assassination to advise him to go ahead with the poll. “To have some kind of postponement or a delay directly related to it in the democratic process would be a victory for no one but extremists responsible for this attacks,” he said.
But the US position was immediately undermined by Pakistan’s other major civilian political leader, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who announced that following Ms Bhutto’s death his Pakistan Muslim League would boycott the ballot.
“Free elections are not possible. Musharraf is the root cause of all the problems,” Mr Sharif said.
There was also widespread expectation that Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party would join the boycott, though some among its shattered leadership were said to believe that the “martyr effect” might sweep the party to power if the election goes ahead.
Temporarily in charge of the PPP is Ms Bhutto’s deputy, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who was next to her in a LandCruiser when she stood through the sun roof of the vehicle to wave at supporters.
According to Mr Fahim and Ms Bhutto’s political secretary, Naheed Khan, who was sitting on the other side of her, their attention was diverted by the sound of gunfire and then a bomb explosion, and they did not notice that their leader was bleeding profusely when she initially slumped back onto the seat between them.
They then saw blood pouring from neck and chest wounds and rushed her to the nearby Rawalpindi General Hospital. Doctors tried to resuscitate Ms Bhutto but said later that she was probably brain dead from the moment she was struck by the first bullet which severed her spinal cord.
Police say at least 28 people were killed in the blast.
Close aides of Ms Bhutto said last night that she clearly anticipated a further assassination attempt after a suicide bomber struck on her return to Pakistan from exile on October 18. Then, more than 150 people were killed.
“I am what the terrorists most fear, a female political leader fighting to bring modernity to Pakistan. Now they are trying to kill me,” she said in one of her final interviews.