| Kashmir
Dispute Boiling Over: threatening side-effects of the Afghan war
Indian
army buildup on the Line of Control in the disputed province of
Kashmir in the last 48 hours are some of the most threatening side-effects
of the Afghan war, bringing two nuclear powers close to flashpoint.
According
to DEBKAfile’s sources on the Indian subcontinent,
the Indian army is holding its heavily boosted military force in
offensive posture opposite the Pakistani army in Kashmir.
Indian
intelligence reports officers of the pro-Taliban Pakistani Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) is plotting this conflict.
Indian defense minister George Fernandes warned recently that Pakistan’s
involvement in the anti-Taliban conflict would not only destabilize
its society and army, but rock the country’s foundations dangerously.
To fight his way out of this corner, Musharraf may resort to stepping
up Pakistan-backed Islamic terrorist attacks in Kashmir, or outright
invasion, deliberately triggering war with India to deflect popular
disaffection.
DEBKAfile’s
Indian military sources report Indian prime minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee as poised on the brink of initiating wide-scale military
action against Pakistan, pre-emptively or not, after declaring India
to be in a situation of “zero military tolerance”.
Indian
military sources told DEBKAfile that these
movements lead into a full Indian war alert in Kashmir.
As
it is, the daily shelling by Pakistan and India could at any moment
ignite the entire front in a flash, drawing a powerful Indian military
response irrespective of the state of the Afghanistan war.
Wednesday,
November 21, Indian border guards killed a dozen guerrillas crossing
from Pakistan into the Pakistan side of Kashmir, at Ramgarh, 40
miles from the state’s winter capital Jammu. According to an
Indian spokesman, the men were “Muslim terrorists”.
A few hours later, an Indian Special Operations Group of the local
police gunned down two top commanders of the Pakistan-based Al-Badr
unit, including its operational chief, Hafiz Ahsan Ali, called “Nayeem”
in a raid on the outskirts of Srinagar.
Pakistani
“Chenab Rangers” claim success in foiling Indian security
attempts to erect an electronic fence along the boundary at three
points. This fence was designed for the Indian army by Israeli experts
as part of the defense exchanges between the two countries. A senior
Israeli defense delegation is due in New Delhi before the end of
the month
Indian prime minister - America responsible for Pakistani-Indian
war .
Indian
prime minister told President George W. Bush in the White House,
on November 9, India holds America responsible for rendering an
outbreak of Pakistani-Indian war hostilities virtually inevitable
by taking Pakistan as its senior partner in the war in Afghanistan,
although India was one of the first countries to side with the American
anti-terror drive.
In
the face of this charge – and since the wheel of war has turned
against the Taliban - the United States has become more receptive
to New Delhi’s point of view.
”A
terrorist is a terrorist,” said US ambassador Robert Blackwill
Wednesday in the Indian capital when asked how Washington regarded
Pakistani support for militants fighting Indian rule in the state
of Jammu and Kashmir. “They are not freedom fighters,”
the ambassador stressed. “No country will be permitted to provide
sanctuaries to terrorists, “
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