Bhutto Calls for Coalition to Replace Musharraf

Pakistan's opposition inched closer to forging a unified front against President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule yesterday as the crisis claimed its first fatalities.

An adult and two boys, aged 11 and 12, were killed in Karachi when an unidentified gunman opened "indiscriminate fire" on a protest led by supporters of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, police said.

Bhutto, under house arrest in Lahore, said she was willing to form a national unity government with other opposition parties if Musharraf left power.

"We need to see whether we can come up with an interim government of national consensus to whom power can be handed," she told the Associated Press.

Rival opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, speaking from exile in Saudi Arabia, said he agreed. But neither specified how they would unseat Musharraf, whose grip on power has tightened since he imposed emergency rule on November 3. Yesterday he appointed Mohammedmian Soomro, the chairman of the senate, as prime minister of a caretaker government until general elections due by January 9.

The appointment of the close ally fueled suspicion that polls would be neither free nor fair.

Sharif's party called it "part of a scheme to perpetuate his rule".

John Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, is due in Islamabad today to urge Musharraf to end the emergency soon. Dana Perino, a White House spokesman, said George Bush "wants the state of emergency to be lifted".

Musharraf has tried to counter western pressure by promising to resign his position as head of the army in the next two weeks, provided legal challenges to his re-election as a civilian president have been cleared.

But he has also pressed ahead with a crackdown that has landed thousands of lawyers, opposition figures and human rights activists in jail.

Yesterday three sisters of cricket star turned politician Imran Khan, who was arrested on Wednesday, were taken into custody at a protest.

Bhutto received a visit from the US consul to Lahore, Brian Hunt, who was allowed cross the barbed-wire police barricades ringing the home where she is detained. Bhutto said Washington was worried about the crisis, and Hunt wanted to know if she could work with Musharraf in future.

"I told him that it was very difficult to work with someone who instead of taking us towards democracy took us back towards military dictatorship," she said.

Police used tear gas and batons to break up a protest by Bhutto's supporters in the north-western city of Peshawar.

Several senior party figures were arrested in Karachi including Mian Raza Rabbani, leader of the opposition in the senate.