RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Enraged crowds rioted across Pakistan and hopes for democracy hung by a thread after Benazir Bhutto was gunned down yesterday as she waved to supporters from the sunroof of her armored vehicle.

The death of President Pervez Musharraf's most powerful opponent threw the nation into chaos just 12 days before elections, and threatened its already unsteady role as a key fighter against Islamic terror.

The murder of Bhutto, one of Pakistan's most famous and enduring politicians, sparked violence that killed at least 10 people and plunged efforts to restore democracy to this nuclear-armed U.S. ally into turmoil.

Another opposition politician, Nawaz Sharif, announced he was boycotting Jan. 8 parliamentary elections in which Bhutto was hoping to recapture the premiership, and Musharraf reportedly weighed canceling the poll.

Pakistan Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said today the government has no immediate plan to postpone the elections. Soomro, head of the interim government that is meant to oversee the vote, said that if there was any decision on delaying the election it would be done in consultation with all political parties.

"Right now the elections stand where they were," he said.

A mob in Karachi looted three banks and set them on fire today, police said. In the central city of Multan, about 7,000 people ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas.

Paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live fire to stop rioters from damaging property, said Maj. Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman.

Bhutto, 54, was killed yesterday amid scenes of blood and chaos as an unknown gunman opened fire and, according to witnesses and police, blew himself up, killing 20 other people.

Musharraf blamed Islamic terrorists, pledging in a nationally televised speech that "we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out."

President Bush, who spoke briefly by phone with Musharraf, denounced the "murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy."

U.S. officials in Washington said they were trying to determine who might have carried out the attack.

Bhutto's death marked yet another grim chapter in Pakistan's bloodstained history, 28 years after her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, another ex-prime minister, was hanged by a military dictatorship in the same northern city where she was killed.

Her death left her Pakistan People's Party leaderless and plunged the Muslim nation of 160 million into violence and recriminations.

Musharraf called senior staff into an emergency meeting to discuss a response to the killing and whether to postpone the election, an Interior Ministry official said. Musharraf also announced three days of mourning for Bhutto, with all businesses, schools and banks to close.

POLITICAL SETBACK

The killing appeared to shut off a possible avenue for a credible return to democracy after eight years under Musharraf's increasingly unpopular rule.

The U.S. was struggling to reformulate its plan to stabilize the country based on a rapprochement between Bhutto and Musharraf. Bhutto had returned in October after nearly a decade in exile.

Analyst Talat Masood, a retired general, said: "Conditions in the country have reached a point where it is too dangerous for political parties to operate."

Sharif, another former premier who now leads an opposition party, demanded Musharraf resign immediately and announced his party would boycott the elections.

"Musharraf is the cause of all the problems. The federation of Pakistan cannot remain intact in the presence of President Musharraf," he said.

Next to Musharraf, Bhutto was the best known political figure in the country, serving two terms as prime minister between 1988 and 1996.

Addressing more than 5,000 supporters yesterday in Rawalpindi, Bhutto dismissed the notion that Pakistan needed foreigners to help quell resurgent militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida in the area bordering Afghanistan.

"Why should foreign troops come in? We can take care of this, I can take care of this, you can take care of this," she said.

FATEFUL MOMENT

As Bhutto left the rally in a white SUV, youths chanted her name and supportive slogans, said Sardar Qamar Hayyat, an official from Bhutto's party who was about 10 yards away.

Despite the danger of physical exposure, a smiling Bhutto stuck her head out of the sunroof and responded, he said.

"Then I saw a thin young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away. That was the time when I heard a blast and fell down," he said.

Bhutto was rushed into surgery. A doctor on the surgical team said a bullet in the back of her neck damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head. Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. She was given an open-heart massage, but the spinal cord damage was too great, he said.

"At 6:16 p.m. she expired," said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

Hours later, supporters carried Bhutto's body out of the hospital in a plain wooden coffin. Bhutto will be buried near her father's grave in the family's ancestral village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh this afternoon, said Nazir Dkhoki, a spokesman for Bhutto's party. He added that Bhutto's husband and three children have arrived from Dubai to attend.

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