Hundreds of thousands of mourners paid their last respects to Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as she was buried on Friday beside her father at the family mausoleum, a day after allegedly a suicide attacker killed her. VOA'S Ravi Khanna takes a look at how the assassination might impact Pakistan's political scene and its ongoing war against extremism.

Asif Ali Zardari, in black clothes and white cap on left, touches the coffin of his wife Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto at her family's mausoleum, 28 Dec 2007

On Thursday, as news of the 54-year old Benazir Bhutto's assassination spread across Pakistan, angry supporters of the opposition leader took to the streets across the country to protest against her killing. The killing threw the campaign for the January 8th election into chaos and created fears of mass protests and an eruption of violence across the volatile south Asian nation.

Karl Inderfurth

Inderfurth says moderate forces in Pakistan are the country's future. "What President Musharraf can do is to join with those forces that, unfortunately, found themselves, many of them, in jail during the emergency, the lawyers, civil society, human rights organizations all of these people they are not the enemy in Pakistan. They are the future of Pakistan."

Farhana Ali

Farhana Ali at the Rand Corporation says the Bhutto assassination will strengthen Musharraf's hand in dealing with them. "Now with the latest attack against Benazir it only makes his claim much stronger that Pakistan has come into the hands of the extremists and that Pakistan now needs to take a stronger stance against terrorism."

Teresita Schaffer

But Farhana Ali says it is only natural that the battle against terrorists will take the back seat for now as President Musharraf tries to go ahead and hold parliamentary elections on schedule. "The right thing to do is not to be deterred. The right thing for Mr. Musharraf, in my opinion, is go forward with the elections to prove to the world community that Pakistan is strong, that Pakistan intends to remain committed to the path of democracy," Ali adds.

Both Schaffer and Inderfurth believe opposition leader Nawaz Sharif can play a very constructive role now in building bridges with the Musharraf government for a smooth transition to liberal democracy, what Bhutto was trying to do before she was killed on December 27th in Rawalpindi.