Islamabad - The decision to crush the ranks of radical clerics and armed students at Islamabad's Red Mosque and seminary with military force may give a quick boost to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's hand, but is expected to fuel greater unrest in the country in the long term.
The events that led to 106 confirmed deaths from the eight-day siege have sidelined the judicial and political crisis that erupted after Musharraf's controversial suspension of the country's chief justice in March.
Many devout Pakistanis that may have been sympathetic to the clerics' demand for Sharia law in Pakistan will also have been angered to see the mosque transformed into a fortress by its defenders, including the stockpiling of large quantities of arms. Sworn liberal political enemies who criticized Musharraf for allowing extremism to go unchecked have also signalled approval for his actions at the mosque.
'The action was essential,' exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto told Britain's Sky TV during the storming operation. 'I'm glad there was no cease-fire with the militants in the mosque because cease-fires simply embolden the militants,' she said, but also predicted a backlash.
The president also waited six months to take firm action, preferring to negotiate a solution, which while exposing him to accusations of appeasement now bolsters his claim that he made every effort to resolve the crisis.
'We demonstrated maximum patience and restraint on Lal Masjid issue,' Musharraf said as the fighting raged. 'No option remained other than an operation.'
The first reaction from the country's liberal media was also one of cautious approval for the president's actions against the two brothers who ran the complex, one of whom subsequently died in fighting while the other was captured trying to escape.
'The government's mistakes in the entire drama notwithstanding, one has to admit that it exercised the utmost restraint. It kept talking to the Aziz-Rashid brothers for months for months and used a variety of channels to free the hostages and disarm the militants,' the influential Dawn newspaper commented.
Musharraf's actions won praise and re-established his reputation as a bulwark against extremism in the United States, which relies on Pakistan as a key ally in its wars against Muslim extremists.
Washington staunchly backed the army general after coercing him into cooperation following the attacks of September 11, 2001, but showed increasing concern in recent months that he was losing control of the situation at home.
'He has gained a couple of points with those that support him,' said retired army general and defence analyst Asad Durrani.
But a sharp backlash from Islamic extremists is inevitable, as well as deepening shock and anger among ordinary citizens if it emerges that hundreds of non-combatants died inside the mosque and seminary.
The body count following the operation looks certain to rise sharply after the army's understatement of the death toll and increasingly implausible denial that women and children died.
'The negative implications start immediately. People don't want to see so many of our own being killed, especially when it comes to women and children,' said Durrani.
But those who oppose Musharaf and see him as a stooge to the West look set to capitalize on the mosque attack.
Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a videotaped message calling upon Pakistanis to rise up against the military leader.
Accusing Musharraf of working on behalf of the 'crusaders' - a reference to the West - he called the assault on the mosque a 'despicable crime' and 'a message of blinding clarity to the Muslims in Pakistan.
'This crime can only be washed away by repentance or blood,' the al-Qaeda leader said. Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan also called for attacks on the Pakistani armed forces. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in cities across the country over the mosque operation, while retaliations to the assault quickly ensued in Pakistan's strongly Islamic tribal areas and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan.
Revenge strikes by militants during the Red Mosque siege killed at least 19 people, including 11 members of the country's security forces, which are both the core of Musharraf's power base and the main target of Islamists opposed to his rule.
'Should events in Islamabad provoke an uprising in the tribal areas and the NWFP, it would add to pressure on the military,' said Oxford Analytica. 'An intensification of operations within Pakistan would increase the prospect of cracks emerging within the armed forces. They could appear in the form of army personnel refusing to be take part in anti-terror operations.'
As well as questions about the apparent concealment of the number of casualties in the mosque siege, the government is also under growing pressure to carry out an inquiry into why and how the intelligence agencies failed to get wind of the goings-on in the Lal Masjid and the stockpiling of arms and ammunition in such large quantities
These come against the backdrop of past speculation that the Lal Masjid stand-off was allowed and even encouraged by the intelligence services to demonstrate Musharraf's value as a bulwark against extremism.
'Any investigation into the past will embarrass a lot of quarters,' Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper wrote Thursday. 'President Musharraf will have to confess to a lot more of the murky past of the Pakistani intelligence agencies and army than he has done so far.'
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