Pro-Taleban militants are determined to overthrow Gen Musharraf by force.
They control substantial areas along the Afghan border. More worryingly for the government, they have, in recent months, extended their control east and north.
They have carried out deadly attacks in the capital, Islamabad, and the main garrison town, Rawalpindi.
They have inflicted humiliating defeats on the army, capturing hundreds of soldiers this year.
The most visible protests are coming from lawyers and judges outraged by the suspension of the constitution. Most of the judges are, in the eyes of Gen Musharraf, out of a job as they have refused to sign a new oath of loyalty to the provisional constitution.
The most prominent of them is Iftikhar Chaudhry, who as chief justice of the Supreme Court had become a focus of opposition to the president. He, like many colleagues, is in effect under house arrest.
Saturday's crackdown targeted a wide range of parties. They include the secular PML-N of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party of Qazi Hussain Ahmed and the small Movement for Justice party of former cricket star Imran Khan.
Mr Sharif is in exile but will be hoping his refusal to negotiate with Gen Musharraf will boost his popularity in the current crisis.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) appears not to have been targeted in the crackdown.
She and Gen Musharraf are in prolonged negotiations over a power-sharing deal. The PPP has the biggest grass-roots support of any party in Pakistan. The United States is keen on a deal partly because it is so alarmed by Gen Musharraf's declining popularity and his failures in the war against militants. Many of Ms Bhutto's supporters have deep reservations over her talks with Gen Musharraf.
One important Islamist party, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) of Fazlur Rehman, has not yet been targeted, reports say. It too is understood to be involved in power-sharing talks with the government. The governing party, the PML-Q, has little popular support and could lose out to the PPP if the latter comes into government.
Most Pakistanis showed little reaction to the state of emergency, with no mass street protests or big displays of support for Gen Musharraf's move. There is widespread disenchantment with the failures of democracy in the country and the failures of successive military rulers to do any better.
If Ms Bhutto's talks with Gen Musharraf break down, she may decide to embark on a campaign of mass protests.
The army is the dominant power in Pakistan. President Musharraf had promised to step down as head of the army later this month. His advisers are now casting doubt on whether that will happen. Observers will be watching for any sign of cracks in the army's support for him.
The powerful intelligence services are still believed to contain elements unhappy with his attacks on Islamist militants and the way he has withdrawn support for militants fighting Indian forces in Kashmir.
The government has been alarmed at how burgeoning news channels have given huge coverage to anti-Musharraf protests in recent months. Now cable operators have been stopped from transmitting TV news within the country.
FM radio stations have also been banned from broadcasting news. The BBC's Urdu language radio broadcasts, which have huge audiences, are still available on medium and short-wave.
Internet news websites have not been affected.
Newspapers, many of which have been highly critical of Gen Musharraf, appear to be ignoring new rules saying that they must not print anything critical of the government. Only some 1.5 million Pakistanis are estimated to read newspapers.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is insisting that Gen Musharraf honours his commitment to step down as head of the army and that parliamentary elections go ahead as planned. That position is being backed by the UK.
The US is also reviewing is substantial aid programme to Pakistan. However, there is no indication that the US would be prepared to end its support for Gen Musharraf, given the role he is playing in its self-declared war on terror.
The offices of the country's leading rights organisation, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, have been raided. Its chairwoman, Asma Jehangir, has been confined to her home, as has the founder of the organisation, IA Rehman.
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