Pakistan's Bhutto set for protest showdown Friday, November 9

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police braced for a showdown with Benazir Bhutto on Friday as the former premier vowed to lead a banned rally against President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of a state of emergency.

The government deployed 6,000 police officers to stop the protest in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, completely sealing off the planned venue in the garrison city with barbed wire and concrete blocks.

The stand-off comes a day after Musharraf said that he would hold elections by February 15, a month later than scheduled, in a bid to fend off criticism from Western allies and domestic opponents.

"Under no circumstances will the rally be allowed. The law will take its course against anyone who defies it," Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz told AFP.

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Top government sources said last-minute negotiations were under way to convince Bhutto, a two-time ex-prime minister who returned from exile last month, to cancel the rally.

Officials refused to rule out the possibility that she could be placed under house arrest.

Police also warned that up to eight suicide bombers have infiltrated Rawalpindi, raising the spectre of a repeat of the double suicide blast that killed 139 people at her homecoming parade in Karachi on October 18.

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Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, however, said it had booked the venue in the city centre location of Liaqat Bagh and vowed to press on with the rally in any case.

"The meeting will go ahead come what may," PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told AFP.

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