Bhutto resumes protest campaign

Ms Bhutto wants to lead a march on the capital next week, aides say.

Pakistani ex-PM Benazir Bhutto has left her Islamabad home for the first time since a brief detention order prevented her from leading a rally on Friday.
The opposition leader was due to meet foreign diplomats, party supporters and civil society leaders in the capital.

She has vowed to continue her campaign against emergency rule imposed a week ago by President Pervez Musharraf, calling on him to quit as army chief.

The attorney general says emergency rule could be lifted within a month.

Malik Mohammad Qayyum said that the security situation was improving.

President Pervez Musharraf imposed the measures last Saturday, blaming militant violence and an unruly judiciary.

'Vague' words

Ms Bhutto has urged Gen Musharraf to step down as chief of staff of the Pakistani army by 15 November, and to hold elections by mid-January.


Riot police surrounded the opposition leader's home on Friday
On Thursday Gen Musharraf pledged to hold parliamentary elections by 15 February - a month later than they were due.

He also renewed a promise to quit as head of the army, if and when the Supreme Court validated his recent re-election as president.

But Ms Bhutto dismissed his words as "vague" and "generalised".

A spokesman for her Pakistan People's Party on Saturday said she was pressing ahead with plans to lead a protest march from Lahore to Islamabad, beginning on Tuesday.

Ms Bhutto was placed under house arrest on Friday to stop her from travelling from Islamabad to nearby Rawalpindi to lead a protest.

The government banned the rally, citing fears of suicide attacks.

Thousands of opposition supporters, lawyers and human rights workers remain in custody and TV news channels are off the air.