That Washington feared a coup was in the works was evident for several weeks now, particularly after a senior administration official issued an unusual warning against any unconstitutional move in Pakistan just before the United Nations General Assembly last month.

Evidently, US intelligence in Pakistan, both of the human and electronic variety, was good enough to show the tensions between the civilian and military forces in the country.

The tensions, sources said, were of Prime Minister Sharif's own making. Earlier this year, he sacked the earlier army chief, Gen Jehangir Karamat, for suggesting a greater role for the military in Pakistan, and replaced him with Gen Pervez Musharraf at the recommendation of his (Sharif's) father. Pakistani circles say the paterfamilias wields great influence inIslamabad.

Karamat's ouster was not exactly to Washington's liking. A quiet, reflective soldier, Karamat is an American favourite, having graduated from Fort Leavenworth. He has several contemporaries in the US military and is often described as a gentleman general by those who know him. Post-retirement, he has become a favourite of the South Asia academic circuit in the US.

Musharraf, on the other hand, is a largely unknown figure in the US, a country that has close and longstanding ties with the Pakistani army. According to one account, the coup leader is close to the fundamentalists and is distinctly anti-American. His resume also shows that unlike most Pakistani generals, he has never had a stint in the US, but has twice trained in the United Kingdom. There is also a suggestion that he recently turned down an invitation to visit the US.

American doubts about Musharraf's hawkishness was confirmed when he masterminded the Kargil incursion, apparently forcing Prime Minister Sharif's hand in thismatter. In retrospect, some analysts say there is reason to reconsider the origins of the taped conversation between Musharraf and his chief of staff that revealed the involvement of the Pakistani army in the Kargil operations. Indian intelligence claims to have obtained the tape, but the source of the operation may need to be reconsidered.

Gen. Musharraf was certainly not Washington's blue-eyed boy. (However, according to some other accounts, the general is a secular and western-minded soldier and has a son and a brother living in the US.) It was against this background that Prime Minister Sharif's brother and principle troubleshooter Shahbaz Sharif visited Washington last month, quickly followed by Pakistan's intelligence chief Gen Khwaja Ziauddin, whose promotion as army chief at the expense of Musharraf precipitated the whole crisis.

From all accounts, Shahbaz Sharif's brother went away with expressions of support from the Clinton administration for his brother's increasingly unpopular regime (TheWashington Post last week carried a story saying the US was the regime's last ally).

But the administration also appeared to have advised the Sharif family to make peace with Musharraf and his men, who were chafing at being asked to back off from Kargil under pressure from Washington. They were also told to ease up on the crackdown in Pakistan and ease up on the opposition.

Sharif appeared to have accepted the advise when he extended last fortnight Musharraf's tenure as the joint chief of staff for another two years (in the process dismissing the naval chief Farhan Bokhari, whose turn it was to occupy the post, and who resigned in a huff). But while buying peace with Musharraf, Sharif also took a series of decisions to promote his own men into key positions in the army. Musharraf blew his gasket at this and even referred to it in his speech last night.

In these circumstances, Sharif tried to sack Musharraf when he was attending a conference in Colombo (where incidentally the first high-levelpost-Kargil military meeting took place because the Indian vice-chief was there too).

But sources say he appeared to have underestimated Musharraf's loyalists in the army and the unpopularity of his own regime. When Musharraf returned from Colombo, not only had his men taken over the Karachi airport, but they had also made ground for his taking over the country. Several key commanders in the army backed the general against the civilian dispensation, a fact that appears to have stunned US officials.