"There is a clear link between the ISI and terrorist organisations in Pakistan." Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary "I have seen indications that Al-Qaida is operating in areas near the LoC." Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary

The man on security looked perplexed. It was 11 o'clock, people had been filing into the meeting for an hour and he had been unable to search anyone. They had walked in through the Holiday Inn's swing doors and, on seeing him and the metal detector, had stepped swiftly to one side. Then they had trooped past the old El Al advertisement and down the stairs to the banquet hall where the Defence Council of Pakistan and Afghanistan was holding its meeting.

Not that the security man would have found much anyway. The men seated at the U-shaped table in the hotel's basement on June 10 had little need to carry weapons. Personally they were not a violent bunch. After all, many of them had hundreds of men who had been doing their dirty work for decades.

There was Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki from Jamaat-al-Dawa, the group that was previously known as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), one of the most feared hardline Sunni groups active in Kashmir and the only one to follow the harsh Salafi doctrine that encourages suicide bombers. There were, sitting a mere 6 ft away, representatives from Tehreek-e-Jaffriya, the hardline Shia organisation blamed for scores of sectarian killings. Opposite them sat the stony-faced men from Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the largest of the Kashmiri militant outfits.

Also at the table were a series of politicians and former military figures. There was the hawkish former director-general of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Hameed Gul, and General Mirza Aslam Beg, the chief of army staff who oversaw Pakistan's return to democracy in 1988. Both are known for their hardline views on Kashmir.

DEFYING MUSHARRAF: At the Defence Council meeting, Sami-ul-Haq (in green turban) said the General had become America's lap dog

There were the predictable political groups-such as Qazi Hussein Ahmed's Jamaat-e-Islami (though the leader himself stayed away) and Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islami(s), whose chief, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, had arranged the meeting. There were the unpredictable too: several former Muslim League ministers in attendance. There was even General Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi, who had just been released from prison after serving his sentence for trying to oust Benazir Bhutto in an Islamists-inspired coup in 1991.

The speeches rolled on through the day, each one including the same words: Kashmir, UN Resolution, human rights abuses by Indians, self-determination, Palestine, jehad, Afghanistan and, of course, President Pervez Musharraf. The conference had been called to discuss what the delegates saw as the General's "appalling betrayal" of the Kashmiri cause. "If the president of Pakistan is weak then there are 140 million Pakistanis who are strong," Lt-General Gul told the audience.

It was an astonishing display. Many of the hardline groups had been banned by Musharraf in January. Others, such as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen-which has been banned for longer-the Sipa-e-Sahaba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) were represented, so journalists were told, by allies in other movements. "This is a democratic country," explained Gul. "These groups are allowed their say."

But, more than anything, what the meeting demonstrated was the struggle Musharraf will face to make his new Kashmir policy-or at least the policy he appears to have decided to follow-stick in a country that is full of people who see it as a betrayal of everything they stand for. Just to reinforce the point, the very next day around 10,000 people attended a rally held by the Jamaat-e-Islami in Muzaffarabad. "The backlash has started," an observer commented drily.

FIERY ANGER: A few of the 10,000 participants at the Jamaat-e-Islami's anti-India rally in Muzaffarabad. The backlash has begun.

The roots of Musharraf's U-turn go back to September last year. As he swung his country behind the US-led coalition on terror (the key reason used to convince reluctant corps commanders was "'if we don't do it, the Indians will"), he placated the angry jehadi outfits with a promise. "We were told that if we kept quiet about the Afghan situation then we would be left alone to do what we wanted in Kashmir," said Yayha Mujahid, of the group formerly known as let.

In retrospect it should have been clear to the main jehadi groups involved in cross-border infiltration and attacks in Kashmir that the days of such activity were numbered. In the post-September 11 world, no terrorist could be labelled a freedom fighter no matter what sort of a regime he was battling against. In November, India Today has learned, teams of American experts were already gathering intelligence on groups such as LeT and JeM.

The next sign came in January. Musharraf, following intense international pressure after the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament, banned five more jehadi groups (Sipa-e-Sihaba and Tehreek-e-Jaffriya had been banned in August), including Lashkar-e-Toiba, whose activities were almost entirely limited to Kashmir. Though most of the 2,500 militants arrested were from the sectarian groups active within Pakistan, the let, sources in the group say, was told to dismantle its infrastructure around Muzaffarabad.

Musharraf then miscalculated. He and his advisers felt that though South Block might not like it, Islamabad was sufficiently popular in Washington for the Americans to turn a blind eye to cross-border infiltration.

What happened next is well-known. Facing international opprobrium, the president backed down. Days before Musharraf's bellicose speech on that Sunday evening the order had already gone out to the militants not to cross the Line of Control (LoC). The militants, though confused and angry, have largely obeyed, even if JeM-substantial elements of which are beyond Islamabad's control-is thought to be still trying to get men and material into the Valley from the Pakistani side.

IN LIMBO: Pakistanis who fought with the Taliban at Peshawar airport after their release by Afghanistan. Thousands are still imprisoned.

Much depended on the infamous ISI. Of its 10,000 staff, approximately a tenth deal with Kashmir. The degree to which they control militants is unclear. "It varies from group to group," said one western intelligence source. "Some elements are, especially since the ban, refusing to listen to any government people at all. Others are more obedient."

Most analysts agree that though the ISI is known for hardline Islamic views, the reputation is not entirely deserved. Not only has Musharraf effectively purged the upper echelons of the agency of "jehadis" but the core values of those in the ISI are not religious. Critically, most-though not all-of the military men attached to the ISI serve only for two or three years with the agency. According to Ershad Mahmood of the Institute for Policy Studies in Islamabad, they do not have time to develop close ties with militant leaders.

The army too is generally on Musharraf's side. In September, around a third of the corps commanders and their equivalents opposed his decision to side with the Americans. The corps commanders meeting on September 20th became heated but Musharraf's collegiate approach with the military brass paid dividends. A number of the top people opposed Musharraf's U-turn on Kashmir though broad support for the president among the ranks of the military remains strong.

"There's a necessary pause now. We have to see how things pan out and what Delhi does. No one is going to give up working for the rights of the oppressed Kashmiri people but if it's a question of jeopardising the security of the whole nation it is clear where priorities lie," said a serving senior officer who requested anonymity. "It is heresy to say it but out in the villages people are concerned about Kashmir in the abstract but aren't going to rise up and depose a government in Islamabad to change the one in Srinagar. Having said that, the Indians must give us and the people in the Valley something."

But the changes in Kashmir policy-coming so soon after the discredited referendum-have wounded Musharraf and given new life to the divided opposition in Pakistan. The presence of several former Pakistan Muslim League ministers at the meeting at the Holiday Inn was significant. Sheikh Rashid, Nawaz Sharif's minister of culture, called on the army to go back to the barracks. "This is an Islamic country but Islamic groups all over the country are being screwed," he said.

Last week villagers in north and south Waziristan, high in the semi-autonomous Pashtoon tribal areas along the Afghan frontier, pledged jehad against India if Pakistan was invaded-as they did when the US air strikes started against the Taliban. Though no Waziri war parties are expected across the loc soon, such sentiments reinforce the sense that Musharraf has been weakened by the failure of his Kashmir policy.

Many senior Taliban men trained in Sami-ul-Haq's madarsa at Akora Khattack in North West Frontier Province. Haq and his party were never going to accept the dumping of the Taliban and the subsequent cooperation with the Americans, and the perceived abandonment of the Kashmiri militants since then has only fuelled the resentment. "Pakistan is becoming the lackey of the imperialist Americans," Haq told the meeting. "And Musharraf is their lap dog."

One problem for the hardline Islamic fringe is that they feel uneasy attacking the government when there are hundreds of thousands of Indian troops mobilised on the border.

On Monday last week American troops hunting for Al-Qaida operatives hiding in the tribal areas mounted a series of secret raids. The local administration was not informed and no Pakistani officials or soldiers accompanied Washington's men. At least two suspected Al-Qaida sympathisers-allegedly involved in facilitating money flows to the fugitive Islamist fighters-were on American ships in the Arabian Gulf before local administrators knew about it.

Simultaneously, Pakistani soldiers pushed into remote parts of the tribal areas that had never seen Islamabad's soldiers before. Intense negotiations preceded the advance which effectively saw thousands of tribesmen brought within the authority of the federal government for the first time.

Western diplomats in Islamabad say the hunt for Al-Qaida and the former Taliban, the banning of sectarian and Kashmiri militant groups, the cessation of cross-border infiltration-at least temporarily-and the extension of Islamabad's authority in the tribal regions are all part of a continuing process of policy-making by the president and his chief advisors.

"Musharraf is intelligent but not an intellectual. He trusts his instincts and acts on them. His instincts are largely secular and modern," one diplomat said. "But Kashmir, as with many Pakistani soldiers and policy makers, has been his blind spot. Now we all want to know if he has seen the light and, if he has, whether he can ride out the backlash."