The spokesman said the government took strong exception today to the brutal assault of two Indian High Commission staffers in Islamabad on Monday, saying it had lodged protests in Islamabad and New Delhi about it.

New Delhi is quite pleased that Washington has refused to buy Islamabad's case that it had not violated the LoC, but doesn't want to be seen to be making too much of the three telephone calls yesterday from Clinton downwards, to the Indian leadership.

``The priority is that Pakistan should quickly withdraw from the LoC. Let us see how the Pakistanis now react to Sharif's commitment to Clinton that Islamabad will take concrete steps to do so,'' sourceshere said.

Meanwhile, an IMF team has returned from Islamabad about a week ago, after having carried out an assessment of Islamabad's adherence to its loan conditionalities. Significantly, the team has asked the Pakistani leadership for ``more information'' than it received during the visit.

Analysts say that if Nawaz Sharif doesn't keep to the promise of withdrawal he has made to Clinton, the US may well lean on the IMF to postpone, at least for the immediate future, the next IMF loan tranche of about $100 million.

With Pakistan so close to the bone on defaulting on its debt payments, a postponement could push it to do what the Americans say, the analysts felt.

Interestingly enough, the Americans are believed to have pulled out the stops during the three-hour Clinton-Sharif meeting on Sunday. Not only did they quote chapter and verse from the 1972 Shimla agreement to the Pakistanis, accusing them of violating the LoC, but also bluntly added that they had to now withdraw from Indian territory.

Themessage, in fact, had been first delivered by US General Anthony Zinni to Islamabad only a week ago. Then the Pakistani establishment had attempted to sell him the line that Islamabad had ``no control'' over the ``freedom-fighters'' fighting the Indian army, but would try and tell them to now cease their hostilities.

In subtle contrast, Sharif and his team didn't attempt to push this view in their meeting with Clinton. Confronted with evidence, they were forced to promise ``concrete steps'' towards restoring the sanctity of the LoC.

Sources in the government also confirmed that the Americans had not asked New Delhi to make an offer of ``safe passage'' for Pakistani troops or ``Mujahideen'' who had aggressed into Indian territory.

They pointed out that since Islamabad continued to claim that Pakistani Army regulars were not fighting in Kargil, they couldn't very well now demand ``safe passage'' for those who were.