Karachi: Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has arrived back in Pakistan, ending four years of self-imposed exile and defying death threats, BBC reported Sunday.
Supporters aboard his jet cheered when it touched down in Karachi airport after a flight from Dubai.
General Musharraf, who plans to lead his party in the May general election, said earlier he was taking precautions.
Meanwhile, 17 soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber in the north-west of Pakistan overnight.
They were attacked at a security checkpoint in the tribal region of North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border and a known stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants.
A recent Taliban video threatened Gen Musharraf with snipers and suicide bombers.
He faces a string of charges including conspiracy to murder, but on Friday the Pakistani authorities granted him protective bail in several outstanding cases, freeing him from immediate arrest once he steps foot in Pakistan.
One of the charges is that he failed to provide adequate security for opposition leader Benazir Bhutto after she returned from exile in 2007.
Two deadly explosions, in which nearly 140 people died, greeted her arrival in Karachi on 19 October. She was killed that December at a rally in Rawalpindi.