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Pakistan On Edge Over its Choice to be a Key U.S. Ally</b/>
September 18, 2001
By Scott Baldauf & Robert Harbison / Staff Writers, The Christian Science Monitor

Pakistanis rally




Around 500 pro-Taliban protesters demonstrate against US policies regarding the Taliban at a busy intersection in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The demonstration was passionate but peaceful as police watched but didn't find it necessary to step in.

Rawalpindi, Pakistan
By offering the United States "every possible help" against terrorism, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has achieved what nearly two years of intense diplomacy and economic reform couldn't: turning Pakistan from a near pariah into one of America's most important allies in what President Bush calls "the first war of the 21st century."

The evidence of this change was immediate. Pakistani officials went to Afghanistan yesterday to use their leverage with the Taliban leadership to persuade them to turn over America's prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, or face US-led military reprisal.

Longer term, Pakistani assistance is likely to range from giving the US access to Pakistani airspace and military installations for launching an attack into Afghanistan, to sharing with the US its intelligence reports on where bin Laden may be hiding.

But this cooperation in a Muslim nation puts the Musharraf government in a very difficult -- and potentially destabilizing -- situation.
(More: The Christian Science Monitor News Source)

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