Pakistan gears up for Bhutto's death anniversary

Thousands of Pakistanis are expected to flock to the tomb of Benazir Bhutto on Saturday to honor their beloved former premier, one year after her assassination in a suicide attack.

A national holiday has been declared to allow Pakistan's 160 million people to pay tribute to the Oxford-educated Bhutto, the first woman to lead a Muslim nation, whose murder at an election rally shocked the world.

Bhutto, 54, was campaigning to return to power, two months after returning to Pakistan from exile, when she and 20 others were killed in a gun and suicide attack in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. The killing threw the world's only nuclear-armed Islamic nation into chaos, sparking violence and leading to months of political turmoil that ended in September when Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, claimed the presidency.