Pakistan's Bhutto prays at father's grave

Thousands of supporters cheered Benazir Bhutto as she arrived in her ancestral village Saturday in her first public trip in Pakistan since last week's devastating suicide blasts.

The former premier offered prayers at her family's mausoleum in a remote corner of southern Pakistan as large crowds chanted "Long Live Benazir" and waved the flags of her party outside.

The crowds were held back from the massive mausoleum by heavily armed security guards amid ongoing fears for the safety of Bhutto, who was targeted in the October 18 blasts which killed 139 people.

"Good Muslims will never attack a woman. I will reach out to my people everywhere in Pakistan," she said defiantly inside the mausoleum.

"I am not happy with security because this kind of security is preventing me from meeting my people, who want to see me and talk to me," she said. Bhutto has vowed to stay in Pakistan despite the twin blasts which ripped through her massive homecoming parade in Karachi organised for her return after eight years in self-imposed exile.

She has pledged to 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 by President Pervez Musharraf.

Bhutto, the first female leader of an Islamic nation, has been hunkered down in her heavily guarded compound in Karachi since the blasts, which delayed the scheduled trip to the village.

Crowds savoured her visit Saturday despite the delay, dancing in the streets of Gahri Khuda Baksh village near Larkana as Bhutto laid flower petals at the tomb of her father inside the mausoleum.

AFP, Saturday