Author: Thom Shanker with Celia
W. Dugger
Publication: The New York Times
Date: June 13, 2002
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
said today that he had "seen indications" that Al Qaeda was operating in
the disputed Kashmir region, but he cautioned that there was no concrete
intelligence on the numbers or nationality of the fighters.
Mr. Rumsfeld has spoken previously
of possible Qaeda infiltration into Kashmir, but his comments came after
a day of talks with Indian leaders to help find a path away from war between
India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed rivals who have placed a million troops
on their border.
Indian leaders have accused Pakistan
of harboring and training Islamic militants in Kashmir and demanded under
threat of war that such support stop. The comments by Mr. Rumsfeld, who
is to hold talks in Pakistan on Thursday, gave support to India's contentions
about the presence of members of Al Qaeda in Kashmir.
Indian officials said Mr. Rumsfeld
had presented "a menu of things we could do to de-escalate" the crisis,
like restoring rail and bus service or putting the military on a lower
state of alert.
Many of his proposals were the same
as India's, the officials said, but they added that India had no plans
to take any more measures to reduce tensions until Pakistan's president,
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, followed through on promises he had made to stop
infiltration of militants into the Indian-held part of Kashmir and to dismantle
their training camps.
Immediately after his session today
with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mr. Rumsfeld was asked about
claims, raised by senior Indian leaders, that Osama bin Laden's network
had infiltrated into Kashmir.
"I have seen indications that there
in fact are Al Qaeda in the area," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "I do not have hard
evidence of how many or who or where."
One important issue that American
and allied intelligence services have not resolved is whether the Qaeda
fighters in Kashmir - if, indeed, they are there - are Kashmiris with links
to Mr. bin Laden, and were perhaps trained in his Afghan camps, or whether
they are terrorists from other nations who have fled the war in Afghanistan.
A Western diplomat in Islamabad
said this week that about 300 members of Al Qaeda were believed to be active
in Kashmir, some fighting in the Indian part and others operating on the
Pakistani side of the dividing line. Many of the Qaeda fighters, the diplomat
said, went to Kashmir after the Taliban's defeat in Afghanistan late last
year.
Concern over training camps and
infiltration prompted Indian officials to strike a tough stance ahead of
Mr. Rumsfeld's arrival, after several conciliatory steps like opening India's
airspace to commercial flights from Pakistan and moving navy ships away
from Pakistan's coast.
Assessing the impact of recent diplomatic
efforts to defuse the situation, one senior Indian official predicted:
"You'll see alternating hard-line positions and some concessions. That's
part of the process."
Today, the position was a hard line.
Nirupama Rao, spokeswoman for India's Foreign Ministry, made it clear that
no more gestures to ease the crisis could be expected right away.
"We would like to wait and watch
until we see precise implementation of the commitments made by President
General Pervez Musharraf," she said. "No further de-escalatory steps are
being contemplated until these assessments are completed."
As expected, Secretary Rumsfeld
and India's leaders discussed the potential use of American surveillance
technology to monitor infiltration in an effort to halt the militants and
avoid more violence.
Mr. Rumsfeld said "that subject
did come up" but that "we came to no conclusions."
After the talks today, one Indian
official said of the idea of posting electronic sensors along the front
line in Kashmir: "We're evaluating U.S. and Israeli sensors to see what's
good for us. Anything we can do to make infiltration more costly we will
be willing to do."
India made it clear today that it
will be watching not only infiltration levels, but the dismantling of camps
in Kashmir. It estimates that there are 60 to 70 training camps in Pakistani-held
Kashmir, and the government's position is that there will be no permanent
end to attacks emanating from Pakistani territory until the camps have
been demolished.
"If the camps survive and the terrorist
network operates, then stoppage of infiltration can only be temporary and
tactical," said a senior Indian official. "Musharraf can switch off the
tap of infiltration, and still terrorist activity can carry on in the Kashmir
valley. The communication links are not broken."
Home Minister L. K. Advani, the
most hawkish member of India's governing inner circle, told Mr. Rumsfeld
that the United States and others should stop asking India what it was
going to do to defuse the crisis and instead ask General Musharraf to fulfill
his pledges, an Indian official said.
The official said Mr. Advani told
Mr. Rumsfeld, "I don't know why again and again people say India is to
do something. Musharraf has to deliver."
Since General Musharraf said in
a speech on May 27 that no infiltration was taking place, Indian officials
have noted a declining trend in infiltration. But they say that it has
not stopped and that communication links between militant groups based
in Pakistani-held Kashmir and their operatives in Indian-held Kashmir have
not been broken.
In the 16 days since the speech,
there has been only one incident in which Indian security forces intercepted
militants sneaking across the border. That took place last weekend. A group
of six men tried to get across the dividing line at a point near a Pakistani
military post, an Indian official said. One was killed.
"They were allowed to come in under
the nose of a Pakistani picket," a senior Indian official said. "But in
fairness I might add that when our troops went to retrieve the body, they
were not fired upon by the Pakistani post, which was unusual."
