The president Monday dissolved Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's 20-month-old government, and the army took over the national television station and telephone exchanges.
There were reports that some members of the administration faced arrest.Army chief of staff Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg said the military moves were taken to assure an orderly transition to other civilian authorities and were not an attempt by the military to seize power.
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan's dismissal of the federal government and call for new elections took Bhutto's administration by surprise, and her supporters accused Ishaq Khan of a "conspiracy against all democratically elected people."
There was no immediate word on Bhutto's whereabouts.
In dissolving the National Assembly, the lawmaking lower house of Parliament, Ishaq Khan said Bhutto's government was corrupt and politically inept. As head of state, Ishaq Khan has the constitutional power to dissolve the government.