OPPOSITION leader Benazir Bhutto yesterday urged Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to resign and ruled out serving under him in a future government after she was placed under house arrest for the second time in five days.

Bhutto also said it was now likely her Pakistan People's Party would boycott January parliamentary elections and indicated that she wanted to build an alliance with other opposition leaders, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

In the southern city of Karachi, Bhutto supporters angry over her detention fired gun shots at two police stations in a poor district of the city where her Pakistan People's Party is popular, senior police officer Fayyaz Khan said. No one was hurt.

Police used tear gas to disperse several bands of protesters, he said.

Bhutto, who was being held at a house in Lahore to prevent her from leading a protest procession, told reporters by phone "it seems unlikely that the People's Party will participate in the upcoming elections."

Earlier, she told private Geo TV network that Musharraf, whom she described as a hurdle to democracy, must resign both as president and army chief. She said Musharraf's surprise declaration of an emergency and crackdown on the opposition and the judiciary meant she could no longer trust him.

"I could not serve as prime minister with Gen. Musharraf as president," she said. "I will not be able to work with Gen. Musharraf because I simply won't be able to believe anything he says to me."

Her comments appeared to bury hopes of the political rivals forming a pro-U.S. alliance against rising Islamic extremism. They had held months of talks that paved the way for Bhutto's return from exile last month to contest January parliamentary elections.

Bhutto accused Musharraf of imposing effective martial law when he declared emergency rule Nov. 3 － suspending citizens' rights and rounding up thousands of his opponents.

She said once she was freed from detention, she would work to forge a broad alliance, including with Sharif － a longtime rival but one who shares her wish to end military rule. Sharif was ousted by Musharraf in the 1999 coup that brought the general to power. He attempted to return to Pakistan in September but was immediately deported.

"Once I'm out, I intend to build a broad-based alliance with a one-point agenda to restore democracy," Bhutto told reporters. "I will work with all political leaders ... I will work with Nawaz Sharif.

"We may work side-by-side. The important thing is that we both believe democracy must be restored," she said.

Authorities mounted a massive security operation to prevent her from leading a procession to the capital, Islamabad, to press for an end to the emergency that Musharraf says is needed to fight rising Islamic militancy.

Thousands of riot police blocked all roads leading to the upscale neighborhood where Bhutto was staying and police said more than 100 of her supporters had been arrested in the area yesterday.

Eight trucks and tractors loaded with sand were parked across one street. Police stood behind the vehicles and a row of metal barricades topped with barbed wire. Reporters could not see the house of a lawmaker where Bhutto was staying because they were prevented from crossing the cordon.

Bhutto's spokeswoman, Sherry Rehman, said the former prime minister was stuck in the house with a handful of top aides. She said Punjab's provincial government had attached the seven-day detention order as well as several padlocks to the front gate.

(SD-Agencies)