Bhutto to ally with opposition

Benazir Bhutto said she is seeking an alliance with other opposition leaders Thursday to form a caretaker government that could replace President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ahead of January elections.\n“I am talking to the other opposition parties to find out whether they are in a position to come together,” Bhutto told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her home in Lahore where she is under house arrest. “We need to see whether we can come up with an interim government of national consensus to whom power can be handed.”\nMusharraf, meanwhile, finalized an interim administration to oversee the Jan. 9 vote. Senate chairman Mohammedmian Soomro, a Musharraf loyalist, will be sworn in Friday as caretaker prime minister, officials said. His appointment could further undermine government assertions the elections will be free and fair.\nThe elections are supposed to complete the restoration of democratic rule in Pakistan, eight years after Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup.\nMusharraf is already under Western pressure to end the emergency rule he imposed Nov. 3. Deepening the crisis, unidentified protesters opened “indiscriminate gunfire” in Karachi, killing two boys ages 11 and 12, police officer Aslam Gujjar said. They were the first reported deaths in unrest during the state of emergency.\nThe army said Thursday that helicopter and artillery strikes killed 41 followers of a pro-Taliban cleric in the northern mountain valley of Swat the day before. Officials said four troops died in militant attacks there and in the Waziristan region near the Afghan border.\nDeputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is to visit Pakistan on Friday and is expected to push for Musharraf to restore the constitution and free thousands of arrested opponents.\nPresident Bush believes that “it is up to President Musharraf. He has the responsibility to help restore democracy to the country,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said.\n“The Pakistanis are going to need to work through their politics,” she said. “And part of what the president wants to see happen is for the state of emergency to be lifted so that people can feel free to express their opposition, express their feelings, express their positions on why they should be part of the government.”\nBhutto commented shortly after a visit from Bryan Hunt, the U.S. consul general in the eastern Pakistani city. Hunt was allowed to cross the barricades and heavy police cordon surrounding the house where Bhutto has been confined since Tuesday.\nHe emerged an hour later and said he had told Bhutto of Washington’s wish for Musharraf to lift the state of emergency, quit as army chief and free opposition politicians and the media.