Pakistan's exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to return home today to a country under emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf, the general who deposed him eight years ago.

Sharif is due to land in his home town, the eastern city of Lahore, sometime between 3 and 4 p.m. (1000-1100 GMT) on a flight laid on by Saudi King Abdullah from the holy city of Medina. The king has also provided Sharif, who is travelling with his wife, Kulsoom, and politician brother and fellow exile Shahbaz Sharif, with an armour-plated Mercedes, aides said.

Mounting insecurity in Pakistan was underscored by two suicide car bomb attacks in Rawalpindi, the garrison town next to the capital Islamabad  that killed at least 15people. There have been more than 25 suicide attacks since July. One attack targeted a bus carrying personnel to an intelligence building, and the other struck an army check point outside General Headquarters.

Two security officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that more than 35 people were killed, but there was no independent verification of the number of casualties.

In contrast to the last time Sharif tried to return in September, when he was swiftly dispatched back into exile inSaudi Arabia, Musharraf has now given his reluctant approval,according to a senior aide to the president. Sharif's return, just in time to file nomination papers for a Jan. 8 parliamentary election, means the increasingly unpopular Musharraf will have to contend with two ex-premiers he has spent much of the last eight years trying to marginalise. General Musharraf, hoping that Benazir Bhutto might become a post-election ally, allowed her back a month ago, shielded from prosecution in old corruption cases she says were politically motivated. She turned confrontational soon after getting back. Her distrust of the establishment was reinforced by a suicide attack on her homecoming parade that killed at least 139 people.