Bhutto leaves Pakistan for Dubai

(CNN) -- Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has flown out of Pakistan for the Gulf city of Dubai, two weeks after returning from an eight-year exile.

The opposition leader, has not seen her family in the Arab emirate since her arrival October 18 in Pakistan.

Bhutto planned to leave Wednesday, but abruptly delayed her trip after after a senior party leader with her Pakistan People's Party advised against it, citing political concerns.

"She has gone to Dubai to see her ailing mother and children," her spokesman Farhatullah Babar told The Associated Press on Thursday afternoon after Bhutto was seen stepping onto an Emirates plane in Karachi.

"She will come back on November 8," her spokesman added.

Bhutto landed at Dubai's international airport and was greeted by her husband, according to The Associated Press, then driven away in a silver Bentley to her family villa.

The nation's political atmosphere in has been tense for months, with Pakistani leaders in August considering the imposition of a state of emergency because of the growing security threats in the country's lawless tribal regions. But President Pervez Musharraf, influenced in part by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, held off on the move.

Since that time Musharraf has faced a flurry of criticism from the opposition, who say he must quit his position as Pakistan's military chief to become eligible to seek a third presidential term.

For weeks the country has been coasting in a state of political limbo while the Supreme Court works to tackle legal challenges filed by the opposition that calls into question Musharraf's eligibility to hold office.

Complicating matters even more was October's presidential elections, where Musharraf garnered a vast a majority of the votes. The election results have not yet been made certified by the high court.

Musharraf, who led the 1999 coup as Pakistan's army chief, has seen his power erode since a failed effort earlier this year to fire the Supreme Court's chief justice. His administration is also struggling to contain a surge in Islamic militancy.

In an effort to shore up support and possibly strike a power-sharing deal, Musharraf's office announced he had signed a "reconciliation ordinance" that drops outstanding corruption charges against Bhutto and a number of other politicians.

Bhutto, who has defied death threats, is working to lead her party into January's general elections and gain a third term as prime minister, possibly under a power-sharing deal with Musharraf.

She has been faced with death threats and, on October 18, an assassination attempt during her homecoming in Karachi, when a suicide attacker killed at least 130 people. Bhutto received light wounds, but escaped largely unharmed. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Syed Mohsin Naqvi in Lahore contributed to this report.

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