Powell oils frontline coalition to bolster unity

"Any explicit American commitment aimed at helping the Pakistan economy will be seen as a huge gain," says Professor Hussain. And such gains would prove a political boost to Musharraf, who desperately needs to point out benefits to his people for supporting the US-led alliance against Afghanistan.

For their part, many Indian officials worry that Pakistan's renewed prominence can only come at the cost of India's growing strategic relationship with the US. In New Delhi, mainstream national newspapers are packed with rumors of a quid pro quo between the US and Pakistan, with Musharraf vowing support for the US-led war on Afghanistan in return for American support of its supposed aims in Kashmir.

In any case, analysts say, Powell will be visiting an India whose patience with Pakistan has run out.

India claims that Pakistan provides material and military support for Islamic militants in Kashmir, and says that these militants have direct ties with both the Taliban and the Al Qaeda network run by bin Laden. Pakistan, for its part, calls these militants "indigenous freedom fighters."

"They [the Americans] have stretched the understanding and the patience of India beyond their elasticity point," says Gen. V.R. Raghavan, former Indian Army chief of staff and now director of the Delhi Policy Group, a strategic think tank in New Delhi. "The government will be pressured to demonstrate it can take action" against Kashmiri militants. "The American position is either you are with us or against us," General Raghavan adds. "The Indian government will say to the US: Either you are with us or against us over terrorism in Kashmir. It works both ways."

But if Indian patience over Kashmir has worn thin, Pakistani public opinion could also take a sharp turn against the ongoing air war against Afghanistan. With reports of heavy civilian casualties, even middle-class Pakistanis have begun to criticize America's tactics against the Taliban.

With the Taliban now leading a select group of journalists to see the devastation in villages outside Jalalabad in southeastern Afghanistan, the Pakistani public will have images to match their own suspicions that the war would inevitably affect innocent Afghans - and fellow Muslims.

Behram, an Afghan national who works for a private aid group in Jalalabad, left that city for Pakistan two days after the US air attacks began Oct 7. He says that Afghan public anger is high against America, particularly in villages struck by American bombs and missiles.

"Two villages were hit, Koram and Bangashir in the Toor Ghar district near Jalalabad," says Behram, who requested that his identity be concealed to protect himself and his aid group. These two villages once were part of a complex of former mujahideen base camps, back when Soviet troops were still in Afghanistan, but they have been dormant for years, he says. "I have visited Toor Ghar four or five times in the past few weeks, and I have not seen any Arabs there."

"The Arabs used to live in Jalalabad; they used to go walking, shopping, go to military bases, but they are changing their camps from time to time," says Behram. "I think the US depends on intelligence services. If this intelligence is good, there won't be civilian killings. But if the intelligence is old, there will definitely be killings."

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