"The troops will remain on alert and will be deployed only if the situation warrants it," chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told Dawn News channel.
Pakistan put its army on standby and placed barricades on the boulevard leading to the Parliament House as the confrontation between country's two main parties PPP and PML-N showed no signs of abating despite frantic mediation efforts.
As the government asked the troops to be deployed in all sensitive areas in the capital, sealed of all highways leading to it, protesting lawyers and opposition parties said they will go ahead with their mass sit-in outside the National assembly.
"The troops will remain on alert and will be deployed only if the situation warrants it," chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told Dawn News channel.
Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik warned that the protesters, who are seeking reinstatement of judges sacked in 2007 emergency, will not be allowed to come anywhere near Parliament House, which has been barricaded.
Malik said that extra-ordinary security measures were being taken as intelligence agencies have warned that terrorists could take advantage of the protest to carry out "target killings" and a "series of bombings", including suicide attacks.
Key installations were facing a threat and "enemies of Pakistan" too could strike during the long march to "destabilise the country", he said without giving details.
The deployment of the army came after it received a request from the government to deploy troops at sensitive locations to maintain law and order during the long march launched by lawyers and opposition parties.
More than 1,200 protesters have so far been rounded up in connection with the long March. Police today halted more than 1500 activists near Multan as they headed for Islamabad.
This was the third procession of lawyers and protesters to be blocked. Earlier, police had stopped motorcades of opposition groups heading from Quetta in Balochistan and Karachi in Sindh towards Islamabad.
The lawyers and opposition parties, including former premier Nawaz Sharif's PML-N party, launched the long march on Thursday to pressure the ruling Pakistan People's Party to reinstate judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf during the 2007 emergency.
The PML-N backed the protest after accusing president Asif Ali Zardari of influencing a Supreme Court verdict that barred party leaders Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif from contesting polls and holding elected office. Zardari imposed Governor's Rule in Punjab province, which was ruled by the PML-N, after the court gave its judgement last month.
A small group of lawyers assembled initially near the office of the Multan Bar Association and the number of the protestors swelled when they were joined by political workers.
Eighty people, most of them lawyers, were rounded up in Multan in overnight raids.
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