A Leap of Faith

Pakistan is rarely out of the news and most of the headlines focus on the country's Islamic militants. In this two part series Owen Bennett Jones, who lived in the country as a BBC correspondent, returns to look at the history of a nation where political crisis has become a way of life. Nuclear armed Pakistan has been described as the most dangerous country on earth: what does its past tell us about its future?

Pakistan was created as a land where Muslims could live in safety. But when the British split the sub continent in 1947 they left behind a nation that went on to suffer decades of political crises. Last year over 750 Pakistanis died in suicide bomb attacks. Why are Islamist radicals targeting fellow Muslims and why do they have any support in Pakistan?

In the first part of the series entitled "The Dream Undone" former BBC Islamabad correspondent Owen Bennett Jones returns to Pakistan to find out why so many of the hopes and aspirations of Pakistan's founders remain unfulfilled. He discovers a nation split between powerful feudal families, the military elite, a religious establishment and powerful tribal and regional forces - pieces of a puzzle that never quite fit.

In the second programme, "Powers in the Land", Owen Bennett Jones examines the rise of Islamist militancy in Pakistan. Many Pakistanis say the radicals in their country first came to prominence because the Americans provided them with billions of dollars of military aid to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Much of that money was raised by the US Congressman Charlie Wilson - the hero of the recent Hollywood movie. Last year Charlie Wilson had a heart transplant operation but before that, in a rare interview, Owen Bennett Jones spoke to him about his support for the Mujahadeen fighters who later became the Taliban

Owen Bennett Jones was the BBC Islamabad correspondent between 1998 and 2001. In 2003 he wrote a history of the country, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. In over a decade of reporting from Pakistan he has interviewed all the leading players in Pakistani politics including General Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Earlier this year he reported from Benazir Bhutto's home shortly after her assassination.