Musharraf Declares Emergency Rule in Pakistan

Ahsan said Musharraf had declared emergency rule because he expected to lose the upcoming Supreme Court decision on the future of his presidency.

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Bhutto, who returned last month from an eight-year exile, condemned Musharraf's moves and said emergency rule made it unlikely there would be fair elections. Her spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said she has not been in recent contact with Musharraf.

Opposition leaders reported late Saturday that squads of police officers were conducting raids and arresting Musharraf critics. Ahsan Iqbal, with an anti-Musharraf group led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said he had managed to slip out a back door when police came to his house to detain him.

"By seconds, I managed to get away," he said. Iqbal said his party would take to the streets to oppose the emergency.

"If the situation in Pakistan has become so grave that you need an emergency, then the person who has been responsible for the past eight years needs to be taken to task," Iqbal said. "General Musharraf is not serious about restoring democracy. He is only perpetuating his own power. He could not afford free and fair elections."

Hundreds of police officers and army rangers set up multiple checkpoints in and around Constitution Avenue, the wide, leafy boulevard where the president's house, the Parliament building and the Supreme Court sit. At one of the checkpoints, dozens of Musharraf's opponents began gathering in an apparently spontaneous display of anger at the emergency declaration, shouting, "Go, Musharraf, go!"

"This is a shame for all of the nation," said Chaudhry Asahgar, a resident of Islamabad. "The whole nation has been destroyed due to this." Several people shouted criticisms of the United States, blaming it for keeping Musharraf in power.

On Friday, U.S. officials had tried to pressure Musharraf to avoid declaring emergency rule or martial law. Adm. William J. Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, met with Musharraf and tried to encourage him to back down from his plan.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Saturday that the United States was "deeply disturbed by reports that Pakistani President Musharraf has taken extra-constitutional actions and has imposed a state of emergency."

Musharraf won a new, five-year term as Pakistan's president in elections last month. But the Supreme Court was still deciding whether he was eligible to run in the first place.

While most analysts had predicted that the court would rule in Musharraf's favor and allow him to begin his new term, the government seemed to be getting nervous as the case dragged on in recent weeks.

With his current term as president set to expire Nov. 15, Musharraf had vowed to step down from his military post before he was sworn in for a new term. But he has broken promises to take off his uniform before and was considered reluctant to do so now. Government officials had been vague lately about Musharraf's plans, refusing to rule out the possibility of an emergency.

Special correspondents Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Shahzad Khurram in Islamabad and staff writers Robin Wright in Washington and Karen DeYoung, traveling with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, contributed to this report.