The man chosen to provide the local muscle in the US's campaign against terrorism is finding himself with hardly a friend at home.

Pervez Musharraf, who bet his future on a post-September 11 alliance with the West, has lost considerable support as he has forced a series of dramatic changes at the behest of his foreign allies, according to interviews with dozens of Pakistanis.

Musharraf is now isolated -- increasingly a figure of ridicule and the focus of a growing anti-Western fury shared by Islamic militants and the middle class alike.

The decline in Musharraf's fortunes is a turnaround since last autumn, when he was hailed at home as a reform-minded Muslim leader.

Musharraf's hold over the army and at least the upper echelons of Pakistan's intelligence is not in doubt, for now, and there appears to be no immediate threat to his power. But at no time since

September 11 has he appeared as isolated or vulnerable.

Musharraf's dutiful carrying out of Washington's demands is galvanising a widespread feeling here that he has traded away Pakistan's sovereignty to the US and Pakistan's new policy towards Kashmir is the latest in a series of humiliations he has endured at the US's hand.

FBI agents joining raids of suspected hideouts of the Al-Qaida and the Taliban, the anti-US sentiment has reached a peak.