Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will return home to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia today, a senior leader of his party said.

Pakistan’s military ruler faced new challenges today in the wake of the country’s suspension from the Commonwealth.

EXILED former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is poised to return to Pakistan to contest critical January elections, his party said last night, posing a significant challenge to the authority of President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistani authorities have reconstructed the severed head of the suicide bomber who killed seven people near President Pervez Musharraf’s office as a probe was opened to determine who was behind the blast, police said today.

A suspected suicide attacker blew himself up at a police checkpoint in Pakistan this morning, killing at least two people and injuring several others, police said.

Osama bin Laden’s call for Pakistanis to rise up against their US-allied military leader struck a chord among an angry, extremist minority on Friday, but resonated little among the wider public and was dismissed by the government as “ridiculous.”

Pakistan today dismissed Osama bin Laden as a terrorist whose “ridiculous” call for holy war against its US-allied leader will find little echo, despite growing concern that al-Qaida is regrouping near the Afghan border.

Pervez Musharraf today rejected “any pressure or ultimatum” to decide whether to quit as army chief, his spokesman said, after opposition leader Benazir Bhutto claimed he would step down under a pact to restore Pakistan to democracy.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf held secret talks with opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto about a possible power-sharing deal, it was reported today.

India has test-fired a Russian rocket which is part of an advanced weapons system it may buy, but is insisting the test was routine.

Pakistani government spokesman General Rashid Qureshi denied there was any proof Osama bin Laden was in his country, as some senior Afghan politicians have suggested.

Uzbek troops along the border with Afghanistan have been put on alert.