Former PM Bhutto begins journey home to Pakistan

DUBAI: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto set off on a journey home to Pakistan on Thursday to end eight years of self exile, leaving her residence in Dubai shortly after 7.00 am.   

Bhutto's Emirates flight is due to arrive around 1.00 pm in Karachi, where huge crowds are expect to greet her.

Some 20,000 security personnel have been deployed to provide protection against threatened suicide bomb attacks by militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban.   

"It is an historic journey our leader is making to Pakistan. It will change the destiny of our country," Javed Yaqoob, a Pakistan People's Party official in Dubai said.

For years Bhutto had promised to return to Pakistan to end military dictatorship, yet she is coming back as a potential ally for President Pervez Musharraf, the army chief who seized power in a coup in 1999.   

General Musharraf is going through his weakest period, and there is strong speculation he will end up sharing power with Bhutto after national elections due in early January.   

The United States is believed to have quietly encouraged their alliance in order to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan pro-Western and committed to fighting al Qaeda and supporting NATO's efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.   

A few dozen PPP loyalists gathered outside Bhutto's home, carrying portraits of their leader and bearing placards.   

They tied a green and black band containing religious verses to Bhutto's shoulder before she left, observing a Muslim custom to wish a traveller a safe journey.   

Bhutto, wearing a green 'salwar kameez' and white headscarf, waved to well wishers as she was driven past in a black Mercedes, seated alongside her two daughters and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari.   

Her maid and dog came to the door to see them off.