
 As Monday dawned, Faisal Islam sat on a highway median in  northwestern Pakistan — the only dry ground he could find — and railed  against the government for its failure to provide aid nearly a week  after the country's worst-ever floods first hit.                 
The government has deployed thousands of soldiers and  civilian rescue workers to save people trapped by the floodwaters,  distribute food and collect the bodies of the 1,100 dead. But the scale  of the disaster is so vast that many residents say that it seems like  officials are doing nothing.
                 "This is the only shirt I have. Everything else is  buried," said Islam, surrounded by hundreds of people in makeshift  shelters constructed from dirty sheets and plastic tarps.
                 Like many other residents of Pakistan's northwest  Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province, the people camped out by the highway in  Kamp Koroona village in Nowshera district — one of the areas hit hardest  by the floods — waded through the water to their damaged houses to  salvage their remaining possessions: usually just a few mud-covered  plates and chairs.
                 The army has given them some cooking oil and sugar, but Islam complained that they needed much more.
                 "We need tents. Just look around," said Islam.
                 The disastrous flooding comes at a time when the weak  and unpopular Pakistani government is already struggling to cope with a  faltering economy and a brutal war against Taliban militants that has  killed thousands of people in the past few years.
                 Pakistan's international partners have tried to  bolster the government's response by offering millions of dollars in  emergency aid.
                 The United Nations and the United States both  announced Saturday that they would provide $10 million dollars in  emergency assistance. The U.S. also provided rescue boats, water  filtration units, prefabricated steel bridges and thousands of packaged  meals that Pakistani soldiers tossed from helicopters as flood victims  scrambled to catch them.
                 The high-profile U.S. gesture of support comes at a  time when the Obama administration is trying to dampen anti-American  sentiment in Pakistan and enlist the country's support to turn around  the Afghan war.
                 "This is much needed stuff in the flood-affected  areas and we need more of it from the international community," said  Latifur Rehman, a disaster management official in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa.
                 The U.S. provided similar emergency assistance after  Pakistan experienced a catastrophic earthquake in 2005 that killed  nearly 80,000 people. The aid briefly increased support for the U.S. in a  country where anti-American sentiment is pervasive.
                 But feelings have since shifted, and only 17 percent  of Pakistanis now have a favorable view of the U.S., according to a  recent poll by the Pew Research Center. Conducted in April 2010, the  survey has a margin of error of three percentage points.
                 The U.S. could be hoping to get a similar popularity  boost from the emergency flood assistance. But like the earthquake  relief effort, the U.S. must compete with aid groups run by Islamist  militants who also use assistance to increase their support.
                 Representatives from a charity allegedly linked to  the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group distributed food and offered medical  services on Sunday to victims in the town of Charsada.
                 "We are reaching people at their doorsteps and in the  streets, especially women and children who are stuck in their homes,"  said an activist with the Falah-e-Insaniat charity who would identify  himself only by his first name, Saqib.
                 With suspected ties to al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba has  been blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed 166  people, and the U.S. military has said the group has stepped up activity  in Afghanistan as well.
                 Pakistani militant groups often rail against  government ineffectiveness as a way to build support, a message likely  to resonate with many in the northwest who have criticized the official  flood response. 
 The U.N. has estimated that 1 million people nationwide have been  affected by the floods, and Pakistani officials have said that at least  500,000 have been displaced from their homes in the northwest. 
 The military has deployed 30,000 army troops who helped rescue more than  20,000 people, said Adnan Khan, a government disaster management  official in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa. 
 However, rescuers have been unable to access certain areas and officials  fear the death toll could increase beyond 1,100, he said. 
 More than 27,000 people in the province remained trapped Sunday and  authorities said 43 military helicopters and 100 boats had been deployed  to try to save them. 
 The impact of the floods could be especially difficult in the Swat  Valley, where residents were still trying to recover from a major battle  between Taliban militants and the army last spring that caused  widespread destruction and drove nearly 2 million people from their  homes. 
 The floods decimated many villages in Swat, destroying people's houses,  shops, vehicles and crops. Residents have received no assistance from  the government, and those who haven't been able to flee by boat are  running out of food, said Fazal Maula, a resident of Imam Dheri village. 
 "We saw destruction during the three years of the Taliban and then  during their fight with the army. But the destruction we have seen in  the last three days is much more," said Maula.