ISLAMABAD  — Begum Nusrat Bhutto, whose husband and daughter both served as prime ministers of Pakistan and a political force herself, died Sunday in Dubai after a long illness, a spokesman for the family's political party said, AP reported. 

She was 82. Her life tracked many of the ups and downs in Pakistani politics. Her husband, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was the founder of the Pakistan People's Party that controls the government in Pakistan today. He served as both prime minister and president in the 1970s.

Begum Nusrat Bhutto took over as head of the Pakistan People's Party for several years after her husband was hanged in 1979, following what many believed was a politically motivated conspiracy and murder trial

She also served in Pakistan's parliament.

Her daughter, Benazir Bhutto, took over as head of the Pakistan People's Party and served twice as prime minister. She was killed in a suicide bomb attack in 2007, shortly after returning to the country to participate in elections following years of exile in Dubai. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is now Pakistan's president.

Nusrat Bhutto was born in 1929 in Isfahan, Iran, hailing from the wealthy Hariri Isfahani family in Isfahan. She was said to be of Kurdish descent. However, there are some claims that despite the fact that her family originates from Kurdistan province in Iran the Kurdish connection only comes from her grandmother who had married into the Hariri family. Her father was a wealthy Iranian businessman who settled in Karachi, Pakistan.

Nusrat met Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Karachi where they got married on September 8, 1951. They had four children together: Shahnawaz, Sanam, Murtaza and Benazir. Except Sanam, she outlived her three other children.

President Zardari has traveled to Dubai to bring home Nusrat Bhutto's body, said Jamil Soomro, a spokesman for the Pakistan People's Party. She will be buried in the family's mausoleum in southern Sindh province, Soomro said.