Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Publication: Washington Post
Date: October 16, 2001
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63710-2001Oct15.html
Pakistan Bristles at Indian Shelling;
Anti-Terror Coalition Faces Challenge
NEW DELHI, Oct. 15 -- Growing tension
between India and Pakistan over the activities of Muslim guerrillas in
the disputed region of Kashmir is raising new challenges for the United
States as it seeks to hold together its international anti-terrorism coalition.
U.S. officials have called Kashmir,
a Himalayan region claimed by both nations and divided between them, the
most dangerous place in the world. There, on frigid glaciers, in scenic
valleys and through hilly villages, Indian troops have battled a Pakistani-backed
Muslim insurgency for more than a decade. The fighting has claimed tens
of thousands of lives, raising fears of a full-scale war between the two
nuclear powers, both of which are key U.S. allies in the effort to squelch
terrorism.
Those worries have taken on a new
currency since the commencement of U.S.-led military strikes against Afghanistan.
Guerrilla violence has surged in Kashmir over the past few weeks, with
daily death tolls in double figures. On Oct. 1, terrorists linked to a
militant group in Pakistan killed 38 people at the state legislature in
a suicide bombing and subsequent shootout.
Today, apparently in response to
that attack and an alleged border incursion by Pakistani soldiers, the
Indian army said it had shelled Pakistani military positions across the
disputed cease-fire line for the first time in 10 months. An Indian army
official claimed that a volley of rockets, mortars, grenades and machine-gun
fire flattened almost a dozen Pakistani military posts, but a Pakistani
army official denied the posts were destroyed and accused India of targeting
civilians.
The tensions have been stoked by
leaders of both nations, who have vowed to use their support for the U.S.
attack on Afghanistan to advance their own agenda on Kashmir.
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, who has risked the wrath of millions of conservative Muslims
by cooperating with the United States, wants Western nations to ignore
his country's support for the guerrilla campaign aimed at driving India
out of its portion of Kashmir. To Musharraf, one Pakistani official said,
"the Kashmir struggle is far more important than the Taliban," the Islamic
militia that rules Afghanistan and was supported for years by Pakistan.
The Pakistani government says that
it provides only diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiri guerrillas,
whom it calls "freedom fighters." But Indian officials contend the rebels
are funded by Pakistan and trained by its army.
India wants the United States to
broaden its anti-terrorism campaign to target organizations in Pakistan
that the Indian government contends have spearheaded violence in Kashmir.
Although India does not play as crucial a role as Pakistan in the strikes
on Afghanistan, Indian officials emphasize that they are sharing intelligence
with the United States and offered their airspace and military bases to
the United States before Pakistan did.
Defusing the tension is a key priority
of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who arrived today in the Pakistani
capital, Islamabad, and was scheduled to travel to New Delhi on Tuesday.
In both cities, said a senior U.S. official, Powell will seek to "lower
the temperature" over Kashmir, which has been the focus of two wars between
India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947.
He is likely to get an earful, officials
and analysts said.
"Both sides expect the United States
to intercede on their behalf in Kashmir," a Western diplomat here said.
"It puts Washington in a very difficult position."
Officially, the Bush administration
has said that it does not intend to mediate the Kashmir conflict. But officials
and analysts said it will be difficult for Washington to distance itself
from the dispute.
"The world cannot afford to ignore
the Kashmir issue, because these are two nuclear countries," said Abdul
Majid Banday, a spokesman for the All-Parties Hurriyet Conference, a coalition
of Kashmiri separatist groups.
With growing opposition in Pakistan
to Musharraf's decision to support the U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan,
activists such as Banday argue that the president needs to play the Kashmir
card -- and he needs international support in doing so -- if he wants to
stay in office.
"The extremist elements in Pakistan
are growing," he said. "The international community will have to strengthen
Musharraf's hand if they don't want the extremists to gain control."
Indian officials said they hope
to extract a commitment from Powell that the U.S. fight against terrorism
in South Asia will be a two-stage process, with the first focusing on Afghanistan
and the second targeting extremist groups in Pakistan. "It's fine if there
are certain things they need to do right away and certain things they intend
to do later," one Indian official said. "But if the United States is serious
about terrorism, they must also address the problem in Pakistan."
U.S. officials have steadfastly
refused to publicly discuss the inclusion of Pakistan in any broader campaign
against terrorism. But Washington has quietly prodded Musharraf to rein
in militants in Kashmir.
Indian intelligence officials say
some guerrilla training camps in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir have been
less active in recent weeks, but the officials are unsure whether that
is the result of the government crackdown or the fact that some of the
fighters have traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban.
The U.S. government also has added
two Pakistan-based militant Kashmiri groups to a list of organizations
whose assets will be frozen for alleged links to terrorism. One is Harkat
ul-Mujaheddin, which sends guerrillas to Kashmir and is alleged to be responsible
for the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines jetliner; the other is Jaish-i-Muhammad,
a radical Islamic organization that claimed responsibility for the Oct.
1 attack before denying it a day later.
Some analysts and officials in India
doubt, however, that the Bush administration will increase the pressure
on Musharraf. Although relations between India and the United States, once
chilled by Cold War tensions, have warmed significantly in the past two
years, they have been overshadowed by the dramatic rapprochement between
Washington and Islamabad. That embrace irritates many in New Delhi who
see India, the world's largest democracy and an officially secular nation,
as a more natural ally of the United States.
U.S. officials maintain that they
want to build special relationships with both countries, but that is something
people in Islamabad and New Delhi find equally implausible.
"It's not realistic for the U.S.
to believe that it can have a special relationship with both of us at the
same time," said Brahma Chellaney, an analyst with the New Delhi-based
Center for Policy Research. "The Americans will have to make a choice.
And since it looks like the U.S. will have to stay engaged in Pakistan
and Afghanistan for a long time . . . it looks like India will lose out."
Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi
contributed to this report.
