Why do I have a bad feeling about this?

Islamabad, Pakistan (AHN) - Negotiators from Saudi Arabia and Lebanon urged former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif Saturday to honor the exile deal and give up his plans to return to Pakistan. Sharif is reportedly preparing to return home on Monday.

The exile deal was struck in the presence of Saudi king as well as then Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2001. According to the deal Sharif and his family members, who were sentenced to imprisonment in corruption cases following his ouster in a bloodless coup by president Pervez Musharraf, were to stay out of Pakistan for 10 years in return for his freedom from jail.

Yet he still is coming home, and so the next logical step is taken:

Islamabad, Pakistan (AHN) - Thousands of supporters of former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif have been arrested by police on the eve of Sharif's supposed return to the country on Monday, Muslim League (PML-N) party officials said on Sunday.

A party spokesman said the police had been rounding up workers from party offices for the last four days and have taken more than 2,000 people into custody to keep them away when Sharif arrives in Islamabad. However, thousands of supporters have reached Islamabad to receive him on Monday, he said.

And the Pakistanis?:

"It's extremely important to show that people are sick and tired of this dictatorial regime," said Zulfikar Ali Khan Khosa, president of the Punjab branch of Sharif's party, predicting huge crowds would travel to the airport despite the crackdown.

Analysts say Sharif's return could crank up the pressure on Musharraf and upset talks on a power-sharing pact with his longtime rival Benazir Bhutto, another exiled former premier plotting a political comeback.

Musharraf wants to win a new five-year presidential term from lawmakers by mid-October, while both Sharif and Bhutto want to contest general elections due by mid-January 2008.

Musharraf, who has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid to help in the country's fight against al-Qaida, has seen his popularity shrink since his failed attempt to fire Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry earlier this year spurred calls for an end to military rule.

Other posts on Musharraf and some history of the area.

Update 9/10: Nawaz Sharif deported.