As the disaster unfolded, a US battle fleet was quickly mobilised with aircraft carriers, its 15,000 personnel and helicopters proving vital to saving lives.

And in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country where most of the 220,000 tsunami victims died, the perception of America’s role in the world improved, Kusnanto Anggoro, a political analyst with the private Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, told AFP earlier this year.

This week, after a huge earthquake left up to 40,000 feared dead in South Asia, most of them in mainly Muslim Pakistan, the United States was again swift to supply military muscle to help save lives in the Muslim world.

From their bases across the mountains in Afghanistan, a fleet of five giant US Chinook and three Blackhawk helicopters were flown to Pakistan to bring aid in and casualties out of the quake-devastated areas.

And on Tuesday, Pakistan’s military said the United States is to send 24 more giant Chinooks while the United States in Brussels urged NATO to consider diverting resources from its peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to help victims of the earthquake in neighbouring Pakistan.

“I was told one of the biggest concerns for the government of Pakistan is not enough airlift capacity to get into the rural areas where people are suffering,” US President George W. Bush said Sunday.

“Pakistan’s a friend, and the United States government and the people of the United States will help as best as we possibly can,”  he said.

At the same time, an association of Pakistani-American doctors announced plans to dispatch a team of medical specialists to the country, providing people-to-people assistance to Pakistan from the United States.

“We are deeply saddened by this disaster and the association is doing all it can to help the victims,” Hussain Malik, the president of the 10,000-member Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America, told AFP in Washington.

The US assistance is far from unique. Many countries around the world have offered aid and assistance to Pakistan including its neighbour and rival India. And two German helicopters and four Afghan helicopters are also due to arrive in Pakistan in coming days, Pakistan said.

But the military capability that has enabled the United States in recent years to provide aid and logistical assistance to places as far flung as Liberia, Indonesia and Pakistan makes the US assistance different and so does the geo-political role of the United States in the world.

According to some political analysts here, of course, Washington’s speedy response to Pakistan’s call for help is a simple pay-back for Islamabad’s support in the “war on terror”.

“Pakistan is a US ally in the fight against terrorism... The US feels it has an obligation to help,” political analyst Hamidullah Tarzi told AFP in neighbouring Afghanistan.

But rights activist Nader Nadery said he did not believe the US operation was the result of any obligation, or that the main purpose of the operation was improving the US image.

However, it might have that effect, he said, and if it did this would have global implications.

“I don’t see it as a particular effort to improve its image, but certainly that would help improve that image,” Nadery said.

Certainly, the United States is conscious of the need to improve its image in the Muslim world.

Solid majorities in key Muslim countries continue to view the United States unfavorably, according to an opinion poll made public in June by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, a non-partisan research initiative.

Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia programme at the non-partisan Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, told AFP he believed the US assistance could have a positive impact on its image.

But he cautioned that aid alone would not be enough if the US wanted to see a fundamental shift in Muslim opinion.

“If aid is delivered quickly and distributed fairly then it could have an impact, among the recipients particularly, and impact on their views of the United States.

“But I would not place too great a stress on this aspect. I think people, particularly in other countries, are going to need more than simply an active American generosity to alter their thinking about the United States and about the properness of American policy.”

And Pakistani political scientist Hasan Askari agreed.

“It can create some greater goodwill for the United States whose role in world politics has become controversial amongst the ordinary people in Pakistan,” he said.

“However a total change in the attitude of the ordinary people toward the United States cannot take place until the US works toward finding just solutions to contentious issues like the Palestinian problem.”