There are many reasons why the present crisis will prove deeply troubling for Pakistan's self-appointed president. Having started the year with the prospect of building a new and more positive relationship with the incoming administration of US President George W. Bush, pressure is now mounting on Musharraf as embarrassing evidence of Islamabad's active support for the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan comes under intense scrutiny.

One of the more difficult issues which the general may have to explain is the close links between two Islamic militant groups involved in the Kashmir region and the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. The two groups in question, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-e Tayyiba, were specifically singled-out in the US State Department's Report on the Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2000. Although, the Pakistani government has repeated denied that it has any involvement with these two groups, credible intelligence community sources point to close ties between senior members of Pakistan's military and security services and both organisations.

Other awkward questions will focus on allegations that Pakistan has hosted training camps for militant Islamic groups and provided them with financial assistance - charges which Musharraf's officials have repeatedly denied - and that Pakistan has been used as the regular transit route via which Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda group has travelled. In particular, there are serious allegations that Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence organisation has active links with both the Taliban regime's intelligence service and Bin Laden himself.

According to local intelligence sources, the Pakistani authorities have provided medical facilities for the ailing Bin Laden, including renal dialysis, at a military hospital in Peshawar. None of this will be unfamiliar to US intelligence operatives who have been compiling extensive reports on these alleged activities. However, it is becoming clear that both the Taliban and Al-Qa'eda would have found it difficult to have continued functioning - including the latter group's terrorist activities - without substantial aid and support from Islamabad. This would, logically, place Pakistan in the category of "states which support terrorism", according to the US government's definition. President Bush's pointed warnings to Bin Laden's backers will have put Musharraf on the spot.

The key question is not whether Pakistan will support the US anti-Taliban coalition, but only how far the general will dare to go in his desperate efforts to make amends for past activities that have been very well documented by US intelligence. Above all, Musharraf will realise that having come to power in 1999 by means of a military coup d'etat, he will have to rely on the continued support of Pakistan's army and security services - both of which are alleged to have close links with the US's principal targets.

In broad terms, the US administration has three main options for military action against the Taliban and its notorious 'guest':

1. Launch a general air-campaign against Taliban targets (government offices, strategic facilities, military forces etc) 2. Undertake selective targeting of Bin Laden's bases and associated locations 3. Attempt a very specific 'smash and grab' raid, probably by helicopter and involving special forces, to seize or kill Bin Laden.

Having launched an ill-fated Cruise missile strike against Bin Laden in 1998, the US cannot risk a repeat mission that fails to hit its main target yet again. Therefore, highly detailed information about his movements will be essential and Pakistan's intelligence service is very well placed to provide this, not least because of its alleged links to the man and his Al-Qa'eda organisation.

For Musharraf, the risks are enormous whichever course he ultimately adopts. Failure to co-operate fully with the US will leave Pakistan isolated and perhaps lead to even tighter and more damaging international sanctions. On the other hand, he is under intense domestic pressure, not least from within his own armed forces. There is also the issue of the militant Islamic groups in Kashmir to consider.

What makes the situation even more critical is that Pakistan is one of the world's nuclear powers. Although as JID has previously pointed out, there are serious limitations on the country's nuclear delivery systems, Islamabad may have around 25 nuclear missiles at its immediate disposal (see JID 9 June 2000). While it is highly unlikely that the present Pakistani government would actually resort to the use of such weapons unless in response to an overwhelming military attack, there is no guarantee that a pro-Taliban regime in Islamabad would act with similar restraint.

General Musharraf came to power with the support of Pakistan's military. He is extremely vulnerable if the army, or at least a significant element of it, turns against him. If he were to be ousted during an anti-Western, pro-Taliban uprising organised by an alliance between Kashmiri militants and nationalist military officers, then the prospect of a full-scale regional conflagration might become very real.

"The United States appears to be plotting to launch a world war by declaring a crusade against Muslims on the pretext of avenging terror attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon," the daily Inqilab said.

"The U.S. and its allies are attempting to strike Islamic states, bypassing the United Nations Security Council," said the paper which has a large leadership among the country's orthodox Muslims.

President Bush has named Saudi exile Osma bin Laden, who has taken shelter in Afghanistan, as the prime suspect for the September 11 attacks that have left more than 6,000 people missing presumed dead.

Bangladesh had promised full cooperation to the United States in case of a military offensive against Afghanistan, and said it would allow Washington to use its airspace, ports and other facilities in a fight against terrorism.

The decision has sparked angry protests by the country's radical Islamic groups, which have urged Washington "not to go for any hasty reprisal based on unsubstantiated proof of bin Laden's involvement in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon."

Protesters in Bangladesh, one of the world's most populous Muslim countries, have burned U.S. flags and effigies of Bush and threatened to join a "jihad" or holy war which the Taliban have vowed to launch in the wake of any U.S. offensive.

"The Bangladesh government has acted against the interest of the country by permitting the U.S. to use its facilities," the Inqilab said.

Bangladesh's major political parties have supported the decision made by the country's caretaker government which took office in July, as required by the constitution, to oversee a general election on October 1.

The independent Daily Ittefaq, however, said Bangladesh had no alternative but to accept the U.S. request to join the global coalition to fight terrorism.

It said Bangladesh needs to protect its multi-billion dollar exports of ready made garments to the United States and bank on U.S. support for development.

Shafi Sami, special assistant on foreign affairs to the caretaker government, headed by former chief justice Latifur Rahman, said the United States has yet to spell out its exact plans for using Bangladesh facilities.

Igor Ivanov, the foreign minister, hinted on Tuesday that Russia might allow US forces to use bases in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, but he seemed to step back from his remarks yesterday.

The Kremlin is concerned that an attack on Afghanistan could fuel Islamic uprisings across the Central Asian states which still look to Moscow as the dominant power in the region.

The most likely centre of operations the United States would prefer is Tajikistan, which has a large Russian base only 60 miles from the Afghan border.

The Tajiks have only recently emerged from a five-year civil war and Russian troops are there to support the local government and ensure stability as much as to protect the border.

The country is still troubled by outbreaks of violence led by regional warlords and disgruntled United Tajik Opposition guerrilla leaders, who oppose the current government.

Thanks to the presence of Russian troops the Tajik government has regained some sort of control over the country.

However, guerrilla fighters who have been backed into a corner during the intermittent fighting have begun spilling over the border into neighbouring republics.

Last August, Kyrgyzstan was raided by Islamic rebels coming across the Tajik border. They captured a group of Japanese geologists who were looking for gold in the mountains and four US mountaineers who were on holiday in the region.

With an economy reeling from sustained droughts and its people on the point of starvation in some southern areas, the tiny Kyrgyz army is ill-equipped to fight battle-hardened rebels or a sustained campaign against incursions.

The spread of Tajik rebels has also worried Uzbekistan. North-west Tajikistan includes the head of the fabled Fergana valley, the only really fertile place in Central Asia.

Alexander the Great passed through the valley on his way to India and commented on the abundance of melons and grapes, which still grow there.

To add to the confusion almost all the regional nationalities are present in the Fergana valley with little regard for the political borders artificially created by Stalin decades ago.

Kyrgyzstan also straddles the Fergana valley, the bulk of which lies in Uzbekistan.

Afraid that rebels would pass down the valley into their country, the Uzbeks sent fighter planes into Kyrgyz territory last year to bomb rebel positions, to the outrage of the Kyrgyz government.

However, the Uzbek fears are well justified as president Islam Karimov, a virtual dictator, narrowly survived an assassination attempt in December 1999 when Islamic extremists exploded five car bombs in Tashkent, the capital.

Mr Karimov has tried to repress Islam in his country, but with only limited success. Samarkand, in the middle of Uzbekistan, is an important holy city in the Islamic world.

Uzbekistan's large Muslim population is concentrated in the Fergana valley, the scene of frequent police raids where human rights groups say a man can be arrested for little more than having a beard.

There is an uneasy peace but analysts have been warning for years of the "explosion of the Fergana valley", a popular and religiously motivated uprising against Mr Karimov's authoritarian rule.

What the Kremlin and the leaders of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan fear most is a flood of rebel fighters spilling out of Afghanistan and into their countries.

This would be a spark to set off the tinderbox of religious dissent all along the Fergana valley.

[THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia, 21 Sept] -- Radical Islamic groups in the world's most populous Muslim nation are rallying in support of Osama bin Laden, illustrating how last week's deadly violence in the U.S. could spread even to traditionally moderate Muslim countries in Asia.

Western intelligence officials believe a number of these Indonesian Islamic organizations have links to Mr. bin Laden and other suspected international terrorist networks, due to their ties to Afghanistan and their history of using violence. The leaders of these Muslim groups say it is their shared religious ideology, rather than any organizational links, that is driving their support for the Saudi exile and militant Islamist, whom Washington has named as a prime suspect in Sept. 11's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The Laskar Jihad is the most prominent of these Islamic organizations, because of its role over the past two years in mobilizing thousands of recruits to take part in a sectarian conflict in eastern Indonesia that has left thousands dead. Its commander, Ja'far Umar Thalib, fought alongside the mujahedeen in Afghanistan as a volunteer in the late 1980s, against the Soviet Union. The group's founder, Ayip Syafruddin, says Mr. Ja'far also met with Mr. bin Laden and studied among many of his contemporaries while in Pakistan.

The Laskar Jihad, or "militia of the holy war," has capitalized on its Afghan links by recruiting more than a dozen Afghan nationals to fight in the sectarian conflict in Indonesia's Maluku islands, according to Western intelligence officials in Jakarta. Mr. Ayip wouldn't confirm this, but did say that the Laskar Jihad has recruited veterans of conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan as "trainers" for their militia members. Mr. Ayip stressed, however, that his organization has no "structural links" to Mr. bin Laden or his al Qaeda organization.

Mr. Ja'far said in an interview that there is a wide ideological gap between his group and Mr. bin Laden's. "Bin Laden feels that all non-Islamic people are his enemies, but we feel this is wrong . We will not support the terror he's launched."

A number of Western officials, however, are still worried that the Laskar Jihad and other militant Islamic groups could foment a backlash against U.S. interests in Indonesia, should Washington strike Afghanistan or other Middle Eastern countries. A string of bombings has rocked the Indonesian capital of Jakarta over the past year, some of which are alleged to have been committed by Islamic organizations. And the U.S. embassy has been shut on two separate occasions because of "credible evidence" of planned terrorist attacks, according to the U.S. State Department.

A Sunday rally in the central Javanese city of Solo underpinned these fears, as 2,000 members of fundamentalist Islamic groups gathered to voice their support for Mr. bin Laden's cause and their antipathy toward the U.S. "Bin Laden is fighting for our beliefs . so we must support his struggle if possible," Abu Bakar Baasir, a leader of the Laskar Mujahedeen task force, told the gathering. "We could help Afghanistan in defending attacks launched by the U.S. government."

The central region of Java island, Indonesia's most populous, is viewed as a breeding ground for the Islamic militancy that is growing in a country that still holds largely to moderate religious views. Indeed, in the province of Yogyakarta, a sultan still holds power. And in the city of Solo, royal palaces dot the landscape, signifying its feudal, rather than Islamic, traditions. But residents say the fall of former Indonesian strongman Suharto in 1998 unleashed long-suppressed religious sympathies in the area.

The formation of the Laskar Jihad is seen as a prime example of this trend. Mr. Ja'far, according to his associates, was a little-known Islamic cleric in the mid-'90s, who traveled the country preaching the importance of Islamic laws. Such proselytizing was largely anathema under the Suharto regime, which had a history of suppressing fundamentalist Islamic movements, often violently.

The catalyst for the Laskar Jihad, senior members say, was the escalating war that broke out between Christians and Muslims on the eastern Indonesian island of Ambon in early 1999. Declaring that Indonesian authorities weren't doing enough to safeguard Muslim interests there, Mr. Ja'far and his supporters quickly set up recruitment camps and training centers for Indonesians willing to fight in the conflict. Thousands were shipped off to the Maluku islands, the archipelago where Ambon lies. The Laskar Jihad has now widened its efforts to embrace the conflict raging in the city of Poso in central Sulawesi.