The resurgence of killings among the rival Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam, climaxing with the assassination of Sunni icon Azam Tariq, has underscored long-held doubts about the direction of Pakistan's crackdown on Islamic militancy, analysts say.
Tariq's death "was the most foretold in Pakistan," the Daily Times newspaper said, questioning how one of the most high-profile sectarian leaders could be gunned down in broad daylight as he entered the nation's tiny, quiet capital.
No one has been arrested for the October 6 killing, the most high profile of at least 76 Shiite and Sunni deaths this year.
President Pervez Musharraf has made an official crackdown on Muslim extremists a hallmark of his rule.
In January 2002, four months into his role as one of the war on terror's most important allies, General Musharraf outlawed five Islamic militant groups, and ordered the arrests of up to 2,000 of their followers.
Most of their leaders were already behind bars, locked up ahead of the United States' bombardment of Afghanistan in October 2001 to stave off a feared violent backlash.
Almost two years on, at least four of the outlawed organisations are operating under new names and their leaders are out of jail. Tariq went straight from his prison cell to a seat in the federal parliament, despite his violent Sunni organisation Sipah-e-Sahaba being among those outlawed in January last year, and despite the 17 Shiite murder cases he was charged with.
Six months before his assassination Tariq had set up a new organisation, Millat-e-Islamia, with similar office holders to the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba. It was a familiar pattern.
Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of the most militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, has been renamed Jamaat-ul Furqan under its leader Masood Azhar, who was released from jail last December.
Another Kashmir-focussed group Lashkar-e-Taiba has reverted to the name of its political wing, Jamaat-ud Dawa.
Lashkar's founder Hafiz Saeed was freed from prison late last year. He now travels the country preaching jihad (holy war) against India.
The Shiite extremist group Tehreek-i-Jafria renamed itself Islami Tehreek. It is part of the coalition of Islamist parties ruling one province and leading the federal opposition.
"If these groups are banned and they rename themselves, you can only freeze the assets of a banned party," Pervez Cheema, director of the Islamabad-based Policy Research Institute, told AFP.
Some analysts say Musharraf is seeking to keep both militants and the West happy.
"It is a strategy," said an Islamabad-based Western analyst.
"By banning these groups he can keep the Americans happy, and at the same time these groups can re-name themselves and keep operating untouched at a lower profile, and the government gets to keep the proxy tools of its foreign policy," he said, referring to rebels fighting Indian forces in disputed Kashmir.