More than 150,000 Pakistanis flocked to the mausoleum of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Saturday after some walked hundreds of miles (kilometers) to offer flowers and kiss her grave on the first anniversary of her assassination.

Some mourners beat their heads and chests and wailing. Several burst into tears. "I am taking these flowers to take home and will show my daughters this gift," said 41-year-old Saifullah Khan.

Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack on Dec 27, 2007, as she was leaving a rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital of Islamabad.

She was campaigning to return her Pakistan People's Party to power in parliamentary elections, a scenario supported by the United States, which admired her secular credentials.

Her assassination shocked the world, fanning revulsion at rising militant violence in Pakistan as well as conspiracy theories that the country's powerful spy agencies were involved.

Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, took over Bhutto's party after her death and was elected president in September, facing a crushing economic crisis and soaring violence by militants also blamed for attacks on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The country of 160 million is now facing a fresh crisis triggered by last month's terror attacks on Mumbai, which India has blamed on Pakistani militants.

"She gave a voice to the people, gave a voice to the downtrodden, the poor and the laborers," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in a televised speech. "She was a hope for the people of this country, she was a hope for this region."

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