The Big Question: After the Red Mosque siege, what does the future hold for Musharraf?

Why are we asking this now?

After a standoff lasting a week, Pakistani troops backed by heavy artillery blasted their way into the Red Mosque in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, killing at least 50 and bringing an end to the boldest act of defiance of Pakistan's military dictator since he seized power in 1999.

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What led to the siege?

For the past six months Islamist students in the capital have been trying to force the imposition of sharia law in Islamabad and throughout Pakistan, attacking music and clothes shops and other symbols of secularism in this leafy, overwhelmingly secular and normally very placid city.

The Musharraf regime went to great lengths to appease the hardliners, taking no action, for example, when their women members took over a children's public library. But when the militants targeted a Chinese acupuncture clinic, claiming it was a brothel, and kidnapped six of the workers, they overplayed their hand. China is one of Pakistan's closest allies, and Chinese diplomats exploded with anger. It is believed they played a crucial role in persuading Musharraf to tackle the rebels head on.

Are Islamists the only ones offended by Musharraf?

No, at this point large sections of Pakistani society are hostile to him. The general's failure to reintroduce genuine democracy, his hamfisted efforts to throttle the free media, and his attempt to get another presidential term without the inconvenience of free and fair elections have alienated even those who repose little faith in former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, both biding their time in exile.

The depth of discontent among non-religious Pakistanis was dramatically revealed when the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, was sacked for insisting on investigating government human rights abuses in Baluchistan. Mr Chaudhury, 59 and with no track record as a leader, swiftly became a popular hero for his courage in standing up to the regime.

What are the roots of discontent?

For one thing, he has been around too long. After years of misgovernment by the elected Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, the general was accepted with scarcely a murmur of dissent when he took power in a bloodless coup in 1999. But his promises to give way to a democratically elected government were broken. Then after 9/11 the US demanded that the world's only Islamic nuclear power be "100 per cent with us or 100 per cent against us".

As Pakistan was one of only two governments that recognised the Taliban government of Afghanistan, Musharraf was put on the spot, and saved himself by coming out strongly - though, as it turned out, not sincerely - on Washington's side. Yet over the subsequent six years he has tried to have it both ways, running with the Islamist hares and hunting with the American hounds. He has thereby lost much support in Washington and the trust of practically everybody, secular and religious alike, for different reasons, at home.

Why did it take him so long to act against the Red Mosque?

It's a question millions of ordinary Pakistanis have been asking themselves for a long time. When he came to power, Musharraf was acceptable to many of his people because he was a proven tough nut: this muhajir (immigrant), born in Delhi and brought to new-minted Pakistan by his parents as a child, had had the gall to try and steal a huge lump of Kashmir from the Indians and, in defiance of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, provoking the mountain war in Kargil in the summer of 1999. The Americans forced Pakistan to back down, but for many Pakistanis the war was a proud moment. Equally glorious to many was the testing of Pakistan's nuclear deterrent the previous year.

Musharraf is a conviction secularist, but in the internal struggle against Islamic fanatics his bravado seemed to desert him. The fact that the military intelligence agency ISI contains Islamists at the highest level, and was the creator and main backer of the Taliban, may have made a showdown with the religious forces out of the question.

What was the balance of risk?

Musharraf's critics, including the opposition leader Imran Khan, are fond of pointing out that the fatal mistake made by India's tyrannical leader Indira Gandhi in 1984 was to send in the heavy artillery against the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holy of holies, to dislodge rebels holed up inside it; she was subsequently assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguard.

By attacking the Red Mosque, they claim, Musharraf may have made a similar grotesque error. But many in Pakistan and India find a more instructive parallel in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814 in December 1999. The Islamist hijackers of the airliner landed at Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and demanded the freeing from Indian prisons of three Islamist leaders. The Indian government finally relented. It was a humiliation from which the Vajpayee government never recovered. And the repercussions in Pakistan were felt for years.

One of the freed militants, the British-educated Omar Sheikh, went on to abduct Daniel Pearl, the American journalist working with the Wall Street Journal; another, Masood Azhar, set up a new militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, which was behind two attempts to assassinate Musharraf in 2003.

The general himself said on 30 June that he believed Jaish members were involved in the Red Mosque defiance. Surrender to the Red Mosque rebels would have been a personal humiliation for Musharraf, and could have emboldened the rebels to take yet more dramatic action against him.

Is there an alternative ruler for the country?

Pakistan's two recent civilian prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, are waiting in the wings. Bhutto announced this week that she plans to stand for a third term as prime minister.

Neither former leader elicits much excitement in Pakistan, however, except among the political clans loyal to them, due to their lacklustre performance in power.

Another possibility is that Musharraf could be brought down by an internal coup. Last month his corps commanders, after a meeting with him, released a statement affirming their commitment to the "leadership and guidance of the President". Musharraf, as Army Chief of Staff, released similar statements in support of Sharif before the 1999 coup.

So who is the real victor in the Red Mosque siege?

President Musharraf's dismal ratings are likely to improve if it emerges that the fanatics inside the Red Mosque who want to Talibanise Pakistan have been defeated.

But if it turns out that dozens of innocent women and children have died in the crossfire, opponents such as Benazir Bhutto will have a new stick with which to beat the general.

Will the storming of the Red Mosque strengthen Musharraf's hand?

Yes...

* If most of the victims of the siege prove to be Islamists rather than women and children

* If he can convince ordinary Pakistanis that he has finally taken decisive action against the fanatics

* If the United States continues to believe there is no viable alternative

No...

* If many women and children died

* If Pakistan's banished and sidelined civilian politicians can band together with new figures such as Iftikhar Chaudhry to demand a return to true democracy

* If Musharraf's fellow generals, with the nod from Washington, decide that the time has come to replace him