Mary Anne Weaver, a foreign correspondent for The New Yorker and the author of Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan (2002), has been reporting from Pakistan and the Middle East for more than 20 years. Here, in a Web-exclusive FRONTLINE interview, she offers her insights on Musharraf, on the growing power of Pakistan's Islamists, and on Al Qaeda's long and intimate connection with the country she vividly depicts as ground zero of the global militant Islamic movement. Weaver spoke with FRONTLINE's Wen Stephenson on Nov. 11 and Nov. 21, 2002.

As Pakistan goes, so goes the war on terrorism. Such thoughts have been in the minds of many observers since the Oct. 10 parliamentary elections in which Pakistan's hardline Islamist parties, led by the pro-Taliban Maulana Fazlur Rahman, won a stunning 22 percent of the contested seats and issued a direct challenge to Pakistan's military dictator and U.S. ally, President Pervez Musharraf. That Musharraf's candidate for prime minister, the moderate Zafarullah Khan Jamali, was elected in Parliament on Nov. 21 by the thinnest of margins -- one vote -- only underscores the precarious political balancing act that Musharraf must continue to perform in the months ahead.