These have not been easy days for Pakistan's embattled president, Gen Pervez Musharraf. On Friday an abortive attempt on his life capped a week when his troops fought a bloody battle with Islamist militants in Islamabad's Red Mosque which has left more than 20 dead.
On the same day a suicide bomber also threw himself at an army jeep killing six Pakistani soldiers in the northwest of the country, the third bomb attack in the region in three days and bringing the death toll to 18. And in the last three months, demonstrators in their hundreds of thousands have marched in the country's main cities over the controversial suspension of chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, prompting more than 1,000 arrests.
The mass campaign that started around Chaudhry, mobilising democrats not Islamists, has increasingly become generalised into one that is explicitly critical of not only Gen Musharraf, with calls for his resignation, but also for the removal of the pervasive influence of the army in Pakistan society. The generals have ruled Pakistan for more than half of the last 60 years and even when civilians were notionally in charge they had to defer regularly to the military. Active or former officers occupy most key state jobs, including posts in education, agriculture and medicine and the military also dominates the corporate world with, reportedly, a $20 billion portfolio of businesses from banks to property and even bakeries. And everywhere lurks the hand of the feared military-led intelligence services.
Despite his lack of democratic credentials and increasing criticism of his methods Washington has supported Musharraf since the bloodless coup that brought him to power eight years ago and will continue to support him because of his willingness, however half-hearted at times, to take on the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The country is due to hold parliamentary elections later this year, but Musharraf has said he wants the outgoing parliament to give him another five-year term before the public votes. He has also indicated he is reluctant to shed his role as head of the army, as the constitution requires, the reason, many believe for his removal of a potentially obstructive Chaudhry.
Now even allies have begun to distance themselves from the president and, a sign of the shifting sands, there are rumours that he may even be paving the way for the return from exile of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to head the government. She says she intends to return soon, irrespective of the corruption charges she may face, and is also said to have been involved in discussions with her former rival, Nawaz Sharif, also once prime minister, in the expectation that between them their parties will secure a majority in the elections.
In the end, however, it is likely that the increasingly isolated Musharraf will not be able to cobble together a government that will command authority, and, in the manner of many a dictator before him, the president will be urged by his fellow generals to step aside. Not a day too soon.