Musharraf declares state of emergency

This is not good:

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has declared emergency rule, state-run TV has said, amid reports that police have surrounded the Supreme Court.

Judges are believed to be inside the building in Islamabad, reports say.

Troops have been deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels have gone off air.

Gen Musharraf is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on whether he was eligible to run for re-election last month while remaining army chief.

Pakistan has been engulfed in political upheaval in recent months, and the security forces have suffered a series of blows from pro-Taleban militants opposed to Gen Musharraf's support for the US-led "war on terror".

The BBC's Barbara Plett reports from Islamabad that fears have been growing in the government that the Supreme Court ruling could go against Gen Musharraf.

Land and mobile telephone lines are down in Islamabad, reports say.

There has been violent unrest building for months and people have forced Musharraf to reinstate a judge:

[Chief Justice] Chaudhry has in recent years passed several judgements against the government.

President Pervez Musharraf tried to sack him last March, provoking a storm of protests from Pakistan's legal community and opposition parties.

Brief history of Pakistan:

The story of Pakistan is one of remorseless tug and pull between the civilian and military rulers on the one hand, and the liberal and religious forces on the other.

In the process, the country has failed to become either a democracy, a theocracy or a permanent military dictatorship.

The chief casualties have been the rule of law, the state institutions and the process of national integration, with grave consequences for the civil society.

The "Talebanisation" of the north-western region is one manifestation of the prevalent disorder; an unending separatist campaign by nationalists in the south-western Balochistan province is another.

Meanwhile, sectarian and ethnic tensions have kept the two largest provinces - namely Punjab, which is the bread-basket of the country, and Sindh, which is its trading and industrial mainstay - perennially instable.

Obviously Musharraf feels he must clamp down to stop the unrest and the attacks on the military, but this is going to turn Pakistan into a pressure cooker.

And Pakistan has nukes.

Update:

Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has today declared emergency rule in a desperate bid to shore up his flagging rule, plunging the country into crisis and triggering angry condemnation at home and abroad.

Musharraf suspended the constitution and fired the chief justice, Muhammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, who spearheaded a powerful mass movement against him earlier this year. Troops entered the Supreme Court in the late afternoon where Chaudhry and six other judges declared illegal his declaration that he would rule under a provisional constitutional order. Chaudhry was reportedly under house arrest.

Police sealed off the main street in central Islamabad and soldiers entered the state television and radio buildings. Private news networks went off air and mobile phone coverage was intermittent. Musharraf is due to address the nation on state television tonight.

Western allies of Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons, were horrified. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said she was 'deeply dismayed' and Whitehall expressed 'grave concern'.