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APLAHORE, Pakistan (AP) —
Pakistan's opposition leader defied house arrest on Sunday to join anti-government protests that quickly descended into violence and chaos, with running battles between stone-throwing protesters and police.The power struggle between Pakistan's president and the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif threatens to paralyze the government and, alarmingly for the U.S., distract the nuclear-armed country from its fight against Taliban militants operating along the Afghan border.
Hundreds of police surrounded the Lahore residence of Sharif, a former prime minister, before dawn on Sunday and detained him along with scores of his supporters, a party spokesman said.
Officers in the eastern Pakistani city showed party officials an order placing Sharif and his politician brother Shahbaz under house arrest for three days, spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed said.
Sharif denounced the order as illegal and later left the house in a convoy of vehicles packed with chanting, flag-waving supporters, headed for a downtown rally that had already turned violent.
Mobs accompanying the swelling convoy smashed the windows of buses parked along the route. Others torched tires, sending plumes of black smoke into the blue sky over a usually bustling boulevard littered with stones and empty tear gas shells.
"These are the decisive moments," Sharif told supporters before he climbed into his car. "I tell every Pakistani youth that this is not the time to stay home; Pakistan is calling you to come and save me."
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