Bhutto's body arrives at family home for burial

By Nadeem Soomro

NAUDERO, Pakistan (Reuters) - Thousands of mourners thronged to assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's ancestral home on Friday ahead of her burial in her family graveyard alongside her father.

Bhutto, a two-time prime minister hoping to win power again in a Jan. 8 election, was killed by a suicide bomber on Thursday after addressing a rally in the city of Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad.

Bhutto's body, accompanied by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and their three children, was flown in a military aircraft to her home province of Sindh in the south of the country hours after she was killed.

People started crying and wailing as Bhutto's coffin was brought to her family home in an ambulance.

"Show patience. Give us courage to bear this loss," Zardari urged the mourners as the coffin was carried into the house.

President Pervez Musharraf, for years a rival of Bhutto, condemned the killing and announced three days of mourning. Schools and banks will also be closed.

Bhutto's party said it would observe a 40-day period of mourning while another opposition leader and former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has called for a nationwide strike on Friday.

Residents of Larkana district, where the Bhutto family has for generations been big land owners, said a grave for Bhutto was being dug at the family graveyard in Garhi Khuda Baksh, a village 5 km from the Bhutto home in the small town of Naudero.