Bhutto mourned at home-in-exile in Dubai

DUBAI: Supporters of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Dubai where she made her base through eight years of exile were left in shock on Thursday following her assassination three months after she returned home.   

"I'm so sad. I feel that my own sister is dead," said Zubeir Bashir, Middle East spokesman for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.  

"This is a big tragedy for Pakistan. This is a very big shock for us," he told as he headed to the Bhutto family home in Dubai.   

Bashir said that members of Bhutto's family who had remained in the Gulf emirate after her return to her homeland in October were already on their way to Pakistan.   

Her husband Asif Zardari was urgently awaiting a flight back to help make the funeral arrangements, Bhutto's spokesman Farhatullah Babar told Pakistani state television.   

Dozens of cars were seen outside Bhutto's home in an upmarket neighbourhood of the city on Thursday evening while police deployed to try to prevent press photographers from taking pictures.   

The leader of Bhutto's party in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed Akran Farooqi, choked with emotion as he tried to express his grief over her killing in a suicide attack in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.   

"I can't say anything... I'm totally upset," he said between sobs.   

Bhutto had received threats that suicide bombers would be sent to kill her before she returned home, but on the eve of her departure from Dubai in October she insisted she was undeterred.   

"I don't believe that a true Muslim will make an attack on me... Islam forbids suicide bombings," she told reporters.   

"I am a people's leader... I gave my word to the people of Pakistan. Nothing is more important to me than my word," she said.   

The UAE, which hosted her during her years of exile, condemned the assassination, along with governments across the Middle East.   

"The UAE has been tormented by this huge loss, which did not hit Pakistan only, but also affected the UAE," Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan said in a statement carried by the official WAM news agency.   

"Words fail to express our condemnation of this criminal act and our pain for the loss of Benazir Bhutto," he said, calling on the Pakistani people to "unite and put their differences aside."    

The Arab League condemned what it called a "heinous terrorist crime."   

The 22-nation bloc's secretary general, Amr Mussa, "offered heartfelt condolences to the Pakistani people over the tragic development," Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.   

Pakistan's western neighbour Iran condemned "the criminal action today in Rawalpindi."   

"The Pakistan government should use all efforts to identify the terrorist group which caused this incident and punish them to prevent terrorist groups from finding opportunities to undertake such actions again," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told state television.  

Iran's regional archfoe Israel, which has no diplomatic relations with Muslim-majority Pakistan, also spoke out against the killing.   

"Benazir Bhutto was a courageous woman who did not hide her ideas, did not know fear and served her country with courage," President Shimon Peres said said in a statement released by his office.    "I had the opportunity to meet her on several occasions and she expressed great interest in what was happening in Israel during those encounters and said she hoped to visit once she returned to power.   

"Benazir Bhutto was a charismatic leader and a determined combatant for peace in her country and in the world," said Peres, who won the Nobel peace prize for his efforts for Middle East peace.    Jordan and Syria also voiced their condemnation.