NEW YORK, Aug 10: The wave of militant attacks on Christian targets and attack on a brigadier in Quetta have fuelled Western governments’ fears that the militants are out to undermine Gen Pervez Musharraf’s regime, which has done little to bring them under control.

In an article, the New York Times said on Saturday: “After the attack, the second on a Christian target this week, Western diplomats and Pakistani officials voiced concerns that Islamic militant groups might be mounting a new challenge to one of the United States’ most important allies in the war on terrorism, President Pervez Musharraf.”

Both attacks were carried out in towns close to Islamabad, in areas thought to be firmly under government control. In the more volatile Quetta, unidentified gunmen shot and critically wounded a military official, the paper said. Experts warned that the country might be entering a period of repeated terrorist attacks by a broad array of militant groups enraged by President Musharraf’s decision to align himself with the US after the Sept 11 attacks, it said.

The Times said that a Western diplomat predicted: “You will have more and more of these kinds of attacks. It’s open season against not only foreigners and Christians but also Musharraf.”

The paper observed that the October elections were supposed to create a democratic legislature and government to counterbalance Gen Musharraf, who was becoming increasingly unpopular.

Pakistanis generally welcomed his rise to power in a coup in October 1999 after a series of corrupt civilian governments. But his heavy-handed methods, particularly a clumsy referendum last spring to prolong his rule, had cost him support among pro-Western Pakistanis, while anti-Western militants detested his alignment with the US, the paper said.

Some diplomats, the paper said, speculated that some small militant groups might be spontaneously conducting separate strikes, while others might be working on larger operations with help from the remnants of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda guerrillas, who were thought to have fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan as Taliban rule collapsed.

The attacks, coordinated or not, came at a sensitive time for Pakistan and the region, it said.

Attacks in Kashmir, that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war this spring, were also on the rise again as Pakistani militants vowed to disrupt Kashmir elections scheduled for September and October, according to the paper. In Afghanistan, the interim government selected in June was still struggling to extend its authority beyond Kabul.

Western diplomats and Pakistani experts told the paper the latest attacks might be a last desperate effort by militants slowly losing their bases of support in the region.

The paper pointed out that after Gen Musharraf announced a crackdown on militant organizations in January, members of various groups formed a loose coalition that vowed to topple the military government. Named Lashkar-i-Omar, the coalition drew its name from Ahmed Omar Sheikh, the militant leader convicted of masterminding the kidnapping and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.

The attack on the Taxila Christian hospital laid out a scenario that observers fear could be repeated over and over in Pakistan. “How do you stop something like this?” an ashen-faced Western diplomat said in an interview with the paper as he stood among pools of blood and shattered glass.