Lighting The Nuclear Fire Musharraf: there will be no more sacrifices

By Edward Luce and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad

Published: May 27 2002 20:56 | Last Updated: May 27 2002 20:56





General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan`s military ruler, said on Monday that Pakistan would not make any further sacrifices of the country`s ``honour and dignity`` as the price of avoiding war with India.

India, which has hundreds of thousands of troops on high alert along the Line of Control, the international border that divides the disputed province of Kashmir, has strongly hinted that it will launch military strikes on its nuclear-armed neighbour unless Pakistan ceases its alleged sponsorship of terrorism.

But in a one-hour interview with the Financial Times, Gen Musharraf flatly denied that there was any cross-border terrorist infiltration of India`s portion of Kashmir. Gen Musharraf, who earlier gave a 25-minute broadcast to the nation, also ruled out any possibility of handing over 20 alleged terrorists - India`s other key demand.

``India cannot be both the accusers and judges,`` said Gen Musharraf. ``We have made it very clear that there is no activity along the Line of Control.``

He added: ``I am a military man. And while I do not want war, I am not scared of war. However the avoidance of war cannot come at the cost of compromising our honour and dignity.``

In a strong hint that Pakistan would retaliate heavily to any Indian military action, Gen Musharraf said that Pakistan was neither a ``walk-over`` nor weak. Pakistan is to test a third nuclear-capable missile on Tuesday, following two tests at the weekend.

``We have good military deterrence,`` he said. ``We not only have a good defensive capability but a good offensive defensive capability. It would not be responsible for a head of state to discuss our nuclear deterrent. But the level of conventional forces that we maintain is more than adequate to implement our strategy of deterrence.``

Gen Musharraf`s message in unlikely to assuage India, which maintains that infiltration has continued across the LOC at the same rate or higher than previous years. Hopes had also been raised in New Delhi that Pakistan would hand over at least the 10 Indian passport holders on the list of 20 alleged terrorists that reside in Pakistan.

But Gen Musharraf told the FT that some of the names that India submitted were ``ridiculous``, including those of people who had allegedly committed crimes in 1980. ``We can give India a list of names who committed crimes in 1947 [when India was partitioned],`` he said.

On cross-border infiltration, Gen Musharraf said that he was considering ``unilaterally`` stepping up the presence of United Nations observers on Pakistan`s side of the LOC to verify the absence of ``infiltration activity``.

India says that Pakistan-based groups were responsible for the assassination last week of Abdul Gani Lone, a leading Kashmiri separatist, in Srinagar and for the massacre the previous week of 34 Indian soldiers and their families in Jammu.





http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1021991066565&p=1012571727102

Lighting The Nuclear Fire Resigned to war in the missiles` shadow

Luke Harding in Pakhlan, on the line of control, Kashmir

Monday May 27, 2002

The Guardian

The shell came clattering over the mountain just as Mohammed Arif Bhat ventured outside to rescue his sheep. It fell through the cool Himalayan air and crashed into a sloping forest of pine trees, horse chestnut and white blossom.

Mohammed`s three sisters heard the explosion - and then silence. When the bombardment ceased, they went to look for their brother.

The shell had landed 20 feet away from where Mohammed, an 18-year-old student, had been crouching on a stone wall. ``We tried to wake him up. But the shrapnel had hit him in the front and back of his head,`` his sister Shaheena, 22, said. ``We loved him very much. He was the only male in our family.``

``We have lost our hopes,`` she added.

Mohammed`s death six days ago was random, meaningless and cruel. His village, Pakhlan, is less than three miles from the ``line of control``, the frontline in Kashmir between Indian and Pakistani forces. The invisible Pakistani gunners on the other side of the densely forested mountain had been trying to hit the Indian army brigade headquarters lower down the valley. They killed Mohammed instead.

But India and Pakistan, now standing on the brink of an all-out war, have over time developed an insouciant attitude towards death. There are now daily artillery battles between Indian and Pakistani forces. Since January, after militants launched an audacious and symbolic attack on India`s parliament building, nearly a million men have been dug in on either side of the border.

When relations between India and Pakistan are good - which is not often - the shelling stops. When they are bad, it starts again.

But few of Pakhlan`s 1,000 villagers understand that the subcontinent is on the verge of a different, more chilling, kind of war, fought not with shells but nuclear-tipped missiles. ``We don`t know what is going on. We just know that when the shells start landing things are bad,`` Shaheena said.

Who did she blame for Mohammed`s death? ``We don`t want to blame anybody.``

The line of control divides Pakistan and Indian occupied Kashmir. The border has scarcely changed since January 1949, when Indian and Pakistani troops fought each other to a standstill over the disputed territory and signed a ceasefire.

Driving towards it, it becomes clear that any invasion would be almost impossible. The whole area is hugely militarised. The ruler-straight road from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir`s summer capital, passes through a valley enclosed by the mountains of Gulmarg, India`s only ski resort. The apple orchards and rice fields gradually disappear. The route then rises above the turbulent olive-green Jhelum river and bumps through a landscape of sheer peaks, glinting tin roofs, and shimmering willows. Indian soldiers are everywhere, checking identity papers or standing on patrol under the shade of poplars. Army convoys clatter towards the frontline in a whirl of dust.

Since the latest escalation in hostilities, firing has taken place on a daily basis, sending residents in the border town of Uri jumping into their home-made underground bunkers. ``The entire roof of my house was destroyed last week in shelling,`` Shah Zaman Patman, 40, a civil servant said. ``I`ve had to move out.`` Who did he blame for the current standoff? ``I`m fed up with both India and Pakistan.``

Mr Patman and other locals are phlegmatic about the prospect of a full-blown conflict. ``The shelling has been going on for a long time. It is already like a war for us,`` he said. The residents of these Himalayan mountains are not stupid: most of the time, they point out, the shells miss. The last shelling in Mohammed`s village was over a year ago. To reach his house involves a steep 30-minute trek.

The air is fresh and scented with resin. In the near distance is a snow-topped mountain. The mountain belongs to Pakistan. The shells landed in the village between 5.25am and 5.40am. There were 20 of them. ``Three of the shells landed in the village itself; the others crashed into the forest on the opposite side,`` Nazir Ahmed, 30, a shopkeeper, said. ``It was brutal.``

The Indian authorities have developed a perfunctory attitude towards shelling victims: there are, after all, plenty of them. The local deputy-general of police gave Mohammed`s family 100,000 rupees (about £1,500) in compensation. After an autopsy, Mohammed`s body was returned to the village the day he was killed. His funeral was held at 9pm. Mohammed`s sisters, Shaheena, Jabeena, 17, and Nasreena, 12, are wondering what to do next.

``Our parents are dead. Mohammed was the only breadwinner. When he was not studying he also worked as a labourer to get us some money,`` Shaheena said. ``The last thing he said to me was: `Keep my breakfast for when I come back.` The shells had already started falling and he wanted to bring in our sheep and cattle.``

The shell landed on a ziaryat, or holy site, sacred to a Kashmiri saint, Baba Dawood Khaki. Ironically the site, a pile of boulders decorated with red flags, is supposed to offer protection from evil.

Yesterday Mohammed`s sisters sat in the sunshine and took his school textbooks out of his fraying satchel. They produced a notebook in which Mohammed had written an essay on communal harmony. ``Hindus and Muslims are brothers,`` he wrote. ``They are both human beings and should respect each other.`` It is a reasonable enough sentiment, but one that faces extinction as India and Pakistan hurtle towards the abyss.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,722695,00.html

Of Violent Birth and Peaceful Death WHO IS GOING TO RECONCILE INDIA AND PAKISTAN?

The conflict between India and Pakistan is gathering pace. The officials statements that are released from Delhi and Islamabad are becoming more and more militant. However, both India and Pakistan continue to claim that neither one will start a war first and that military actions will be possible only in the case of aggression by the other side. There are not many people who believe these statements, taking into consideration the fact that both Pakistan and India are obviously getting ready for a war, concentrating their troops on the border and testing their missiles. Pakistan even withdrew its peacemaking contingent from Sierra-Leone, so it looks like this: ?if you want peace, get ready for war.?

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is expected to visit Delhi and Islamabad this week together with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. It is not hard to guess the subject of the talks: the politicians will talk about the cessation of the conflict. Noone can guarantee that this mission will be successful. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee claimed that Delhi was not going to listen to the opinion of the international community and exercise restraint with Pakistan. This statement is like a cross on the visit of the British premier and UN Secretary-General.

Currently, India is taking rather a tough position as far as the conflict is concerned. Delhi believes that this is the only way to cause Pakistan to stop supporting Kashmir separatists. It is worth mentioning that India is in a better situation that Pakistan. The reputation of a country that supports terrorism is not good for Pakistan. Delhi realizes this advantage, and it is trying to use it as much as possible. This is where the harsh tone of Indian statements comes from.

For example, Indian Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani stated today that a war with Pakistan is already taking place. The minister believes that Pakistan and its terrorists have declared war on India several years ago. He estimated the current situation in the region as ?challenging? for India, which needs to find other ways to solve its conflict with Pakistan. He claimed that there has been a common war between the two countries during the last couple of weeks, but the phantom war (terrorism) has lasted for two decades. Advani added that India?s losses from the phantom war have been much greater than in the armed conflict.

The fact that the ruling party of India is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not optimistic either. This party is well-known for its radicalism and irreconcilability. A lot of observers believe that the recent Indo-Muslim massacre in Gujarat was provoked by BJP?s policy. The Indian premier is considered to be a moderate politician, and Advani is conspicuous for his radicalism. It is hard to say whose influence is bigger in the government.

It seems that Delhi is more and more inclined to solve the issue of terrorism very quickly, as the Indian government is ready to start amilitary conflict with Pakistan if there is a necessity. The consequences of this would be very lamentable, since neither Delhi, nor Pakistan will stop when it comes to nuclear weapons. Negotiations may put an end to the conflict, but there is not much hope for this.

Oleg Artyukov

PRAVDA.Ru

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/05/27/29356.html

Of Violent Birth and Peaceful Death Resigned to war in the missiles` shadow

Luke Harding in Pakhlan, on the line of control, Kashmir

Monday May 27, 2002

The Guardian

The shell came clattering over the mountain just as Mohammed Arif Bhat ventured outside to rescue his sheep. It fell through the cool Himalayan air and crashed into a sloping forest of pine trees, horse chestnut and white blossom.

Mohammed`s three sisters heard the explosion - and then silence. When the bombardment ceased, they went to look for their brother.

The shell had landed 20 feet away from where Mohammed, an 18-year-old student, had been crouching on a stone wall. ``We tried to wake him up. But the shrapnel had hit him in the front and back of his head,`` his sister Shaheena, 22, said. ``We loved him very much. He was the only male in our family.``

``We have lost our hopes,`` she added.

Mohammed`s death six days ago was random, meaningless and cruel. His village, Pakhlan, is less than three miles from the ``line of control``, the frontline in Kashmir between Indian and Pakistani forces. The invisible Pakistani gunners on the other side of the densely forested mountain had been trying to hit the Indian army brigade headquarters lower down the valley. They killed Mohammed instead.

But India and Pakistan, now standing on the brink of an all-out war, have over time developed an insouciant attitude towards death. There are now daily artillery battles between Indian and Pakistani forces. Since January, after militants launched an audacious and symbolic attack on India`s parliament building, nearly a million men have been dug in on either side of the border.

When relations between India and Pakistan are good - which is not often - the shelling stops. When they are bad, it starts again.

But few of Pakhlan`s 1,000 villagers understand that the subcontinent is on the verge of a different, more chilling, kind of war, fought not with shells but nuclear-tipped missiles. ``We don`t know what is going on. We just know that when the shells start landing things are bad,`` Shaheena said.

Who did she blame for Mohammed`s death? ``We don`t want to blame anybody.``

The line of control divides Pakistan and Indian occupied Kashmir. The border has scarcely changed since January 1949, when Indian and Pakistani troops fought each other to a standstill over the disputed territory and signed a ceasefire.

Driving towards it, it becomes clear that any invasion would be almost impossible. The whole area is hugely militarised. The ruler-straight road from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir`s summer capital, passes through a valley enclosed by the mountains of Gulmarg, India`s only ski resort. The apple orchards and rice fields gradually disappear. The route then rises above the turbulent olive-green Jhelum river and bumps through a landscape of sheer peaks, glinting tin roofs, and shimmering willows. Indian soldiers are everywhere, checking identity papers or standing on patrol under the shade of poplars. Army convoys clatter towards the frontline in a whirl of dust.

Since the latest escalation in hostilities, firing has taken place on a daily basis, sending residents in the border town of Uri jumping into their home-made underground bunkers. ``The entire roof of my house was destroyed last week in shelling,`` Shah Zaman Patman, 40, a civil servant said. ``I`ve had to move out.`` Who did he blame for the current standoff? ``I`m fed up with both India and Pakistan.``

Mr Patman and other locals are phlegmatic about the prospect of a full-blown conflict. ``The shelling has been going on for a long time. It is already like a war for us,`` he said. The residents of these Himalayan mountains are not stupid: most of the time, they point out, the shells miss. The last shelling in Mohammed`s village was over a year ago. To reach his house involves a steep 30-minute trek.

The air is fresh and scented with resin. In the near distance is a snow-topped mountain. The mountain belongs to Pakistan. The shells landed in the village between 5.25am and 5.40am. There were 20 of them. ``Three of the shells landed in the village itself; the others crashed into the forest on the opposite side,`` Nazir Ahmed, 30, a shopkeeper, said. ``It was brutal.``

The Indian authorities have developed a perfunctory attitude towards shelling victims: there are, after all, plenty of them. The local deputy-general of police gave Mohammed`s family 100,000 rupees (about £1,500) in compensation. After an autopsy, Mohammed`s body was returned to the village the day he was killed. His funeral was held at 9pm. Mohammed`s sisters, Shaheena, Jabeena, 17, and Nasreena, 12, are wondering what to do next.

``Our parents are dead. Mohammed was the only breadwinner. When he was not studying he also worked as a labourer to get us some money,`` Shaheena said. ``The last thing he said to me was: `Keep my breakfast for when I come back.` The shells had already started falling and he wanted to bring in our sheep and cattle.``

The shell landed on a ziaryat, or holy site, sacred to a Kashmiri saint, Baba Dawood Khaki. Ironically the site, a pile of boulders decorated with red flags, is supposed to offer protection from evil.

Yesterday Mohammed`s sisters sat in the sunshine and took his school textbooks out of his fraying satchel. They produced a notebook in which Mohammed had written an essay on communal harmony. ``Hindus and Muslims are brothers,`` he wrote. ``They are both human beings and should respect each other.`` It is a reasonable enough sentiment, but one that faces extinction as India and Pakistan hurtle towards the abyss.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,722695,00.html

The Perfect Murder Pakistan President Tries to Stave Off War

Musharraf Promises to Restrain Militants in Kashmir



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17397-2002May27.html



By Sharon LaFraniere

And Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 27 (Monday) ? In a speech by turns defiant and conciliatory, Pakistan`s president Gen. Pervez Musharraf tonight tried to stave off the threat of war with India, promising to keep Pakistani militants out of the Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir.

But he also accused India`s leaders of irresponsible and aggressive behavior toward Pakistan, and asked the world to investigate atrocities that he said are being committed against Muslims in Kashmir under India`s rule.

Although some Pakistani analysts said Musharraf seemed to want to pacify India without appearing too weak, political leaders in New Dehli said the Pakistani general failed miserably. Rather than averting war, they said, Musharraf made it more likely for the two nuclear-armed nations.

``There is absolutely nothing for us to work with in this speech,`` said India`s deputy foreign minister, Omar Abdullah. ``He`s categorically told the world, that as far as I`m concerned, there`s absolutely nothing that I need to stop.``

Abdullah said the Pakistani president`s strident tone suggests there is little room for further negotiations with Pakistan. ``I had believed there was still a lot of diplomatic options available to us,`` he said. ``But today he has closed down a lot of that space.``

With nearly a million Pakistani and Indian soldiers massed along an 1,800-mile border, Musharraf is under heavy pressure at home and abroad to ease tensions with India lest a full-scale war breaks out. Firing along the Line of Control dividing the two parts of Kashmir is now a daily occurrence, with deaths of civilians mounting. Tens of thousands of villagers on both sides have fled the border region.

Musharraf, who seized power three years ago, said repeatedly that Pakistan would not allow itself to be used as a staging area for insurgents who want to drive India out of its portion of Kashmir. Musharraf made a similar promise Jan. 12 when the two countries were at a similarly dangerous junction.

First in Urdu, then in English, Musharraf said, ``We do not want war. We want peace in the region. Pakistan will never allow the export of terrorism anywhere in the world from within Pakistan.``

He noted that Pakistan had also suffered terrorist incidents, and suggested the two countries are victims of the same extremist groups. Again condemning a May attack that left more than 30 people dead in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, he said, ``We believe that whoever is involved is also endeavoring to destablize Pakistan.``

But he also accused India of trying to intimidate Pakistan, stirring up an atmosphere of near hysteria and failing to respond to Pakistan`s ``bold steps`` to stop extremism. ``I would like to state that this aggressive naming and blaming from the Indian leadership is extremely irresponsible,`` he said.

And while he vowed to stop any incursions across the Indian border, he said Pakistan would never give up the struggle for Kashmir`s independence. ``Kashmir lives in the heart of every single Pakistani,`` he said, and Pakistan will fulfill its ``moral, political and diplomatic commitments`` for Kashmir`s freedom.

``I think this is about the maximum he could have said,`` said Najam Sethi, editor of the Islamabad newspaper Friday Times, who was one of a number of journalists who met with Musharraf last week.

``He really stuck his neck out this time. He said Pakistan will never export terrorism, and he said it not once but five times. This is very strong stuff.``

But Abdullah, the Indian deputy foreign minister, and another senior Indian official, I.D. Swami, the deputy minister for home affairs, said the Pakistani president offered no concessions. They said the speech would strengthen India`s resolve to use military force to attack what it alleges are militant training camps in the Pakistan-controlled parts of Kashmir, an action that could precipitate full-scale combat.

``Now there`s no scope, no room left,`` Swami said. ``It looked like nothing worked, not even American pressure. He`s saying he just doesn`t bother about the world.``

As Musharraf addressed his increasingly nervous nation, the violence on the border continued to escalate after a relative lull last week.

Indian mortar fire today killed six civilians and wounded at least 16 more near the Pakistani town of Sialkot on the southern part of the border that divides Kashmir between the two nations. Four more died and 12 were wounded in the same area Sunday. India, which has suffered fewer civilian casulties, reported that one soldier died and three were wounded in heavy fire Sunday night.

The Pakistani and Indian military accuse each other of firing anti-tank weapons and heavy artillery, despite the thousands of villages that lie close to each side of the border. The narrow roads that lead away from the border carry a steady flow of fleeing villagers, their wagons piled high with their belongings.

Leaders of both nations are under intense international pressure to restrain their armies. President Bush called Sunday on Musharraf to fulfill his January promise to control Pakistani militants.

Britain`s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, landed in Pakistan tonight in a bid to defuse the crisis. He is scheduled to travel to India later in the week. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, is scheduled to travel to the region next week. Senior Pakistani officials said the Islamabad government decided Thursday to do everything necessary to stop the incursions into India`s territory, and Musharraf claimed in an interview Saturday with The Washington Post that the raids have stopped.

But Indian officials claim 50 to 60 fighters crossed over into Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan in the past month alone.

Swami, the Indian deputy minister for home affairs, said he was unconvinced by Musharraf`s pledges. ``I don`t know how far we can continue to believe him and how far he can continue to befool the world,`` Swami said.

He said India now has little reason to delay before commencing military strikes. ``I don`t think there`s anything left to wait for,`` he said. ``We`ve already been suffering with terrorism for two decades. I don`t think India is left with any other choice.``

But other officials and analysts said India would continue to spend the next several days trying further diplomatic sanctions and pressure to avert a military confrontation. Although India already has expelled Pakistan`s ambassador to New Delhi, Indian officials are seriously considering breaking off all diplomatic relations with Pakistan, a step that has never been formally taken since Pakistan was partitioned from British colonial India in 1947.

``There`s still room for a last-ditch international effort to avoid war,`` said Brahma Chellaney, the head of strategic affairs at the Center for Policy Research, a think-tank in New Delhi. ``War still isn`t imminent.``

But Chellaney said Musharraf`s stance would increase domestic pressure on India`s prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to go to war. ``He is perceived right now as a man who is only engaged in talk but no action,`` Chellaney said. ``This speech was like waving a red flag at a bull.``

Lighting The Nuclear Fire Pakistan President Tries to Stave Off War

Musharraf Promises to Restrain Militants in Kashmir



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17397-2002May27.html



By Sharon LaFraniere

And Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 27 (Monday) ? In a speech by turns defiant and conciliatory, Pakistan`s president Gen. Pervez Musharraf tonight tried to stave off the threat of war with India, promising to keep Pakistani militants out of the Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir.

But he also accused India`s leaders of irresponsible and aggressive behavior toward Pakistan, and asked the world to investigate atrocities that he said are being committed against Muslims in Kashmir under India`s rule.

Although some Pakistani analysts said Musharraf seemed to want to pacify India without appearing too weak, political leaders in New Dehli said the Pakistani general failed miserably. Rather than averting war, they said, Musharraf made it more likely for the two nuclear-armed nations.

``There is absolutely nothing for us to work with in this speech,`` said India`s deputy foreign minister, Omar Abdullah. ``He`s categorically told the world, that as far as I`m concerned, there`s absolutely nothing that I need to stop.``

Abdullah said the Pakistani president`s strident tone suggests there is little room for further negotiations with Pakistan. ``I had believed there was still a lot of diplomatic options available to us,`` he said. ``But today he has closed down a lot of that space.``

With nearly a million Pakistani and Indian soldiers massed along an 1,800-mile border, Musharraf is under heavy pressure at home and abroad to ease tensions with India lest a full-scale war breaks out. Firing along the Line of Control dividing the two parts of Kashmir is now a daily occurrence, with deaths of civilians mounting. Tens of thousands of villagers on both sides have fled the border region.

Musharraf, who seized power three years ago, said repeatedly that Pakistan would not allow itself to be used as a staging area for insurgents who want to drive India out of its portion of Kashmir. Musharraf made a similar promise Jan. 12 when the two countries were at a similarly dangerous junction.

First in Urdu, then in English, Musharraf said, ``We do not want war. We want peace in the region. Pakistan will never allow the export of terrorism anywhere in the world from within Pakistan.``

He noted that Pakistan had also suffered terrorist incidents, and suggested the two countries are victims of the same extremist groups. Again condemning a May attack that left more than 30 people dead in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, he said, ``We believe that whoever is involved is also endeavoring to destablize Pakistan.``

But he also accused India of trying to intimidate Pakistan, stirring up an atmosphere of near hysteria and failing to respond to Pakistan`s ``bold steps`` to stop extremism. ``I would like to state that this aggressive naming and blaming from the Indian leadership is extremely irresponsible,`` he said.

And while he vowed to stop any incursions across the Indian border, he said Pakistan would never give up the struggle for Kashmir`s independence. ``Kashmir lives in the heart of every single Pakistani,`` he said, and Pakistan will fulfill its ``moral, political and diplomatic commitments`` for Kashmir`s freedom.

``I think this is about the maximum he could have said,`` said Najam Sethi, editor of the Islamabad newspaper Friday Times, who was one of a number of journalists who met with Musharraf last week.

``He really stuck his neck out this time. He said Pakistan will never export terrorism, and he said it not once but five times. This is very strong stuff.``

But Abdullah, the Indian deputy foreign minister, and another senior Indian official, I.D. Swami, the deputy minister for home affairs, said the Pakistani president offered no concessions. They said the speech would strengthen India`s resolve to use military force to attack what it alleges are militant training camps in the Pakistan-controlled parts of Kashmir, an action that could precipitate full-scale combat.

``Now there`s no scope, no room left,`` Swami said. ``It looked like nothing worked, not even American pressure. He`s saying he just doesn`t bother about the world.``

As Musharraf addressed his increasingly nervous nation, the violence on the border continued to escalate after a relative lull last week.

Indian mortar fire today killed six civilians and wounded at least 16 more near the Pakistani town of Sialkot on the southern part of the border that divides Kashmir between the two nations. Four more died and 12 were wounded in the same area Sunday. India, which has suffered fewer civilian casulties, reported that one soldier died and three were wounded in heavy fire Sunday night.

The Pakistani and Indian military accuse each other of firing anti-tank weapons and heavy artillery, despite the thousands of villages that lie close to each side of the border. The narrow roads that lead away from the border carry a steady flow of fleeing villagers, their wagons piled high with their belongings.

Leaders of both nations are under intense international pressure to restrain their armies. President Bush called Sunday on Musharraf to fulfill his January promise to control Pakistani militants.

Britain`s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, landed in Pakistan tonight in a bid to defuse the crisis. He is scheduled to travel to India later in the week. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, is scheduled to travel to the region next week. Senior Pakistani officials said the Islamabad government decided Thursday to do everything necessary to stop the incursions into India`s territory, and Musharraf claimed in an interview Saturday with The Washington Post that the raids have stopped.

But Indian officials claim 50 to 60 fighters crossed over into Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan in the past month alone.

Swami, the Indian deputy minister for home affairs, said he was unconvinced by Musharraf`s pledges. ``I don`t know how far we can continue to believe him and how far he can continue to befool the world,`` Swami said.

He said India now has little reason to delay before commencing military strikes. ``I don`t think there`s anything left to wait for,`` he said. ``We`ve already been suffering with terrorism for two decades. I don`t think India is left with any other choice.``

But other officials and analysts said India would continue to spend the next several days trying further diplomatic sanctions and pressure to avert a military confrontation. Although India already has expelled Pakistan`s ambassador to New Delhi, Indian officials are seriously considering breaking off all diplomatic relations with Pakistan, a step that has never been formally taken since Pakistan was partitioned from British colonial India in 1947.

``There`s still room for a last-ditch international effort to avoid war,`` said Brahma Chellaney, the head of strategic affairs at the Center for Policy Research, a think-tank in New Delhi. ``War still isn`t imminent.``

But Chellaney said Musharraf`s stance would increase domestic pressure on India`s prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to go to war. ``He is perceived right now as a man who is only engaged in talk but no action,`` Chellaney said. ``This speech was like waving a red flag at a bull.``

Of Violent Birth and Peaceful Death Pakistani Militants` Ties to Military Make Radicals Hard to Dislodge

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

SLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 26 ? For more than 20 years, the Pakistani government has used Islamic radicals as an instrument of both domestic and foreign policy.

Now, many Pakistani security experts doubt that the government has the will or the means to neutralize what has become a huge network of violence.

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In recent days the general who is now president, Pervez Musharraf, has reportedly resolved to strengthen a 1997 antiterrorism law to make it easier to prosecute extremist acts by Islamic militants, and he is pushing for changes to allow longer detention of suspects without trial.

Left untouched by these proposals and largely taboo in public discussion, though, are the tight and longstanding ties between Kashmiri separatists, radical Islamic groups and Pakistan`s military and intelligence structure.

According to Pakistani experts on Islamic militancy and national security, there are as many as 500,000 members of jihadi ? Muslim holy war organizations ? in Pakistan, including many thousands committed to the cause of forcing India out of the sector of Kashmir that it controls. One expert said that as many as 3,000 fighters trained in Pakistan are operating in Indian-controlled territory.

In December, Kashmiri militants attacked the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, killing 12 and setting the two countries on a course for a crisis that has brought a million soldiers to the Kashmir region, Indian threats of a ``decisive victory`` over its neighbor and provocative Pakistani tests of ballistic missiles.

A new test this weekend of the Ghauri missile, which has a range of 900 miles, brought reproaches not only from India, but from President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Even after those reproaches, Pakistan tested a Ghaznavi missile, whose 175-mile range could reach border regions of India.

The jihadis trace their roots to the mujahedeen, the Islamic fighters who battled the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan, beginning in 1979. Pakistani experts say the Kashmiri separatists, like the American- and Pakistani-backed mujahedeen, have been assisted by Pakistan`s military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.

``The terror structure built up in the 1980`s is very much intact, and the jihadi groups are functioning the same way they always have, recruiting, training and fund-raising,`` said Arif Jamal, a Pakistani author who has spent years studying Islamic militancy here. ``This government does not have the political will to crack down. The only thing new is that since December, these groups are not visible. They have changed their names, their telephone numbers and addresses, and they have moved out of Islamabad.``

When the Kashmiri insurgency entered its violent phase 12 years ago, it was mostly indigenous. Over the years, Pakistan first gave political support to the separatists, then more and more military support, drawing on the 80,000 fighters whom Pakistan had trained and armed to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

As the insurgency evolved, Pakistan`s military and intelligence services struck upon the idea of employing jihadis to wrest control of the Kashmir from India.

``We have fought three wars with India and have not won even one of them,`` said an expert on the country`s jihad movements. ``The success of the jihadi strategy in Afghanistan compelled the generals to try it on India, too. The Kashmir jihadis are our cannon fodder because they are willing to die for their cause in a way that no paid soldiers would.``

The Pakistani government strongly denies promoting cross-border infiltration, but the enduring official ambivalence about support for such groups could be heard in the comments of one senior official here who said that although there was heavy pressure now to arrest separatist leaders, any action must ``ensure that the Kashmiri population on our side of border is not disillusioned, because their support for our strategic objectives is crucial.``

Though India insists that Pakistan can and must curb attacks within Kashmir, the political issue of governing the state has become overshadowed by the religious agenda of the Islamic jihadis. This religious aura has been reinforced by the return of many of Pakistan`s most hardened Islamic militants from Afghanistan since the unseating of the Taliban there.

Groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, which received heavy patronage from the former president Zia ul-Haq, who used them to keep civilian politicians off guard, reportedly still enjoy strong links to the Pakistani intelligence services, particularly through retired agents and army officers who worked with them both domestically and in Afghanistan.

``If the army is with Musharraf, he can neutralize these groups, but it will take a long time, and a terrible amount of violence in Pakistan first,`` said one Pakistani with intimate knowledge of the security services. ``I still don`t see the army taking these groups on, though. Jihad has been part of the defense structure of this country for 20 years. How do you get rid of 500,000 people?``

Recent attacks in Pakistan ? the killing of the journalist Daniel Pearl, a church bombing in Islamabad, a car bomb in Karachi that killed 12 French military contractors ? hint at what lies ahead if President Musharraf pursues a war on domestic terrorist groups.

``With Pakistan`s support for the American attacks against the Taliban, President Musharraf is already their enemy,`` said Dr. Rasul Baksh Rais, director of the Area Studies Center, an independent political research group. The president may give some hint of his plans when he addresses the nation on Monday.

Pakistani intelligence sources have reportedly linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi to both the Karachi bombing and the Pearl killing, and describe them as revenge against the West for the defeat of the Taliban, and a shot across the bow of the government not to toe an overly enthusiastic pro-Western line.

Under heavy international pressure to crack down on terrorism after these two incidents, the government has responded with uncommon energy, rounding up three suspects in the Karachi bombing who led them to Mr. Pearl`s body last week.

Pakistani intelligence sources now say that the killing of Riaz Basra, leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the country`s most wanted man, was in fact a police execution in detention, and not a shootout with villagers in southern Pakistan, as publicly reported. According to The Weekly Independent, the killing of Mr. Basra, who had recently returned to Pakistan from a base in Afghanistan, was a warning by the government to his followers.

``The government will want to pursue a systematic but gradual line against terror,`` Dr. Rais said. ``There is change, but there is also a long history of collaboration here, so it will take time. If the government pushes too hard, it will create a rebellion.``

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/27/international/asia/27STAN.html

New York Times

Of Violent Birth and Peaceful Death Pakistani Militants` Ties to Military Make Radicals Hard to Dislodge

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 26 ? For more than 20 years, the Pakistani government has used Islamic radicals as an instrument of both domestic and foreign policy.

Now, many Pakistani security experts doubt that the government has the will or the means to neutralize what has become a huge network of violence.

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In recent days the general who is now president, Pervez Musharraf, has reportedly resolved to strengthen a 1997 antiterrorism law to make it easier to prosecute extremist acts by Islamic militants, and he is pushing for changes to allow longer detention of suspects without trial.

Left untouched by these proposals and largely taboo in public discussion, though, are the tight and longstanding ties between Kashmiri separatists, radical Islamic groups and Pakistan`s military and intelligence structure.

According to Pakistani experts on Islamic militancy and national security, there are as many as 500,000 members of jihadi ? Muslim holy war organizations ? in Pakistan, including many thousands committed to the cause of forcing India out of the sector of Kashmir that it controls. One expert said that as many as 3,000 fighters trained in Pakistan are operating in Indian-controlled territory.

In December, Kashmiri militants attacked the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, killing 12 and setting the two countries on a course for a crisis that has brought a million soldiers to the Kashmir region, Indian threats of a ``decisive victory`` over its neighbor and provocative Pakistani tests of ballistic missiles.

A new test this weekend of the Ghauri missile, which has a range of 900 miles, brought reproaches not only from India, but from President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Even after those reproaches, Pakistan tested a Ghaznavi missile, whose 175-mile range could reach border regions of India.

The jihadis trace their roots to the mujahedeen, the Islamic fighters who battled the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan, beginning in 1979. Pakistani experts say the Kashmiri separatists, like the American- and Pakistani-backed mujahedeen, have been assisted by Pakistan`s military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.

``The terror structure built up in the 1980`s is very much intact, and the jihadi groups are functioning the same way they always have, recruiting, training and fund-raising,`` said Arif Jamal, a Pakistani author who has spent years studying Islamic militancy here. ``This government does not have the political will to crack down. The only thing new is that since December, these groups are not visible. They have changed their names, their telephone numbers and addresses, and they have moved out of Islamabad.``

When the Kashmiri insurgency entered its violent phase 12 years ago, it was mostly indigenous. Over the years, Pakistan first gave political support to the separatists, then more and more military support, drawing on the 80,000 fighters whom Pakistan had trained and armed to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

As the insurgency evolved, Pakistan`s military and intelligence services struck upon the idea of employing jihadis to wrest control of the Kashmir from India.

``We have fought three wars with India and have not won even one of them,`` said an expert on the country`s jihad movements. ``The success of the jihadi strategy in Afghanistan compelled the generals to try it on India, too. The Kashmir jihadis are our cannon fodder because they are willing to die for their cause in a way that no paid soldiers would.``

The Pakistani government strongly denies promoting cross-border infiltration, but the enduring official ambivalence about support for such groups could be heard in the comments of one senior official here who said that although there was heavy pressure now to arrest separatist leaders, any action must ``ensure that the Kashmiri population on our side of border is not disillusioned, because their support for our strategic objectives is crucial.``

Though India insists that Pakistan can and must curb attacks within Kashmir, the political issue of governing the state has become overshadowed by the religious agenda of the Islamic jihadis. This religious aura has been reinforced by the return of many of Pakistan`s most hardened Islamic militants from Afghanistan since the unseating of the Taliban there.

Groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, which received heavy patronage from the former president Zia ul-Haq, who used them to keep civilian politicians off guard, reportedly still enjoy strong links to the Pakistani intelligence services, particularly through retired agents and army officers who worked with them both domestically and in Afghanistan.

``If the army is with Musharraf, he can neutralize these groups, but it will take a long time, and a terrible amount of violence in Pakistan first,`` said one Pakistani with intimate knowledge of the security services. ``I still don`t see the army taking these groups on, though. Jihad has been part of the defense structure of this country for 20 years. How do you get rid of 500,000 people?``

Recent attacks in Pakistan ? the killing of the journalist Daniel Pearl, a church bombing in Islamabad, a car bomb in Karachi that killed 12 French military contractors ? hint at what lies ahead if President Musharraf pursues a war on domestic terrorist groups.

``With Pakistan`s support for the American attacks against the Taliban, President Musharraf is already their enemy,`` said Dr. Rasul Baksh Rais, director of the Area Studies Center, an independent political research group. The president may give some hint of his plans when he addresses the nation on Monday.

Pakistani intelligence sources have reportedly linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi to both the Karachi bombing and the Pearl killing, and describe them as revenge against the West for the defeat of the Taliban, and a shot across the bow of the government not to toe an overly enthusiastic pro-Western line.

Under heavy international pressure to crack down on terrorism after these two incidents, the government has responded with uncommon energy, rounding up three suspects in the Karachi bombing who led them to Mr. Pearl`s body last week.

Pakistani intelligence sources now say that the killing of Riaz Basra, leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the country`s most wanted man, was in fact a police execution in detention, and not a shootout with villagers in southern Pakistan, as publicly reported. According to The Weekly Independent, the killing of Mr. Basra, who had recently returned to Pakistan from a base in Afghanistan, was a warning by the government to his followers.

``The government will want to pursue a systematic but gradual line against terror,`` Dr. Rais said. ``There is change, but there is also a long history of collaboration here, so it will take time. If the government pushes too hard, it will create a rebellion.``

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/27/international/asia/27STAN.html

New York Times

Of Violent Birth and Peaceful Death Pakistan President Tries to Stave Off War

Musharraf Promises to Restrain Militants in Kashmir



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17397-2002May27.html



By Sharon LaFraniere

And Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 27 (Monday) ? In a speech by turns defiant and conciliatory, Pakistan`s president Gen. Pervez Musharraf tonight tried to stave off the threat of war with India, promising to keep Pakistani militants out of the Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir.

But he also accused India`s leaders of irresponsible and aggressive behavior toward Pakistan, and asked the world to investigate atrocities that he said are being committed against Muslims in Kashmir under India`s rule.

Although some Pakistani analysts said Musharraf seemed to want to pacify India without appearing too weak, political leaders in New Dehli said the Pakistani general failed miserably. Rather than averting war, they said, Musharraf made it more likely for the two nuclear-armed nations.

``There is absolutely nothing for us to work with in this speech,`` said India`s deputy foreign minister, Omar Abdullah. ``He`s categorically told the world, that as far as I`m concerned, there`s absolutely nothing that I need to stop.``

Abdullah said the Pakistani president`s strident tone suggests there is little room for further negotiations with Pakistan. ``I had believed there was still a lot of diplomatic options available to us,`` he said. ``But today he has closed down a lot of that space.``

With nearly a million Pakistani and Indian soldiers massed along an 1,800-mile border, Musharraf is under heavy pressure at home and abroad to ease tensions with India lest a full-scale war breaks out. Firing along the Line of Control dividing the two parts of Kashmir is now a daily occurrence, with deaths of civilians mounting. Tens of thousands of villagers on both sides have fled the border region.

Musharraf, who seized power three years ago, said repeatedly that Pakistan would not allow itself to be used as a staging area for insurgents who want to drive India out of its portion of Kashmir. Musharraf made a similar promise Jan. 12 when the two countries were at a similarly dangerous junction.

First in Urdu, then in English, Musharraf said, ``We do not want war. We want peace in the region. Pakistan will never allow the export of terrorism anywhere in the world from within Pakistan.``

He noted that Pakistan had also suffered terrorist incidents, and suggested the two countries are victims of the same extremist groups. Again condemning a May attack that left more than 30 people dead in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, he said, ``We believe that whoever is involved is also endeavoring to destablize Pakistan.``

But he also accused India of trying to intimidate Pakistan, stirring up an atmosphere of near hysteria and failing to respond to Pakistan`s ``bold steps`` to stop extremism. ``I would like to state that this aggressive naming and blaming from the Indian leadership is extremely irresponsible,`` he said.

And while he vowed to stop any incursions across the Indian border, he said Pakistan would never give up the struggle for Kashmir`s independence. ``Kashmir lives in the heart of every single Pakistani,`` he said, and Pakistan will fulfill its ``moral, political and diplomatic commitments`` for Kashmir`s freedom.

``I think this is about the maximum he could have said,`` said Najam Sethi, editor of the Islamabad newspaper Friday Times, who was one of a number of journalists who met with Musharraf last week.

``He really stuck his neck out this time. He said Pakistan will never export terrorism, and he said it not once but five times. This is very strong stuff.``

But Abdullah, the Indian deputy foreign minister, and another senior Indian official, I.D. Swami, the deputy minister for home affairs, said the Pakistani president offered no concessions. They said the speech would strengthen India`s resolve to use military force to attack what it alleges are militant training camps in the Pakistan-controlled parts of Kashmir, an action that could precipitate full-scale combat.

``Now there`s no scope, no room left,`` Swami said. ``It looked like nothing worked, not even American pressure. He`s saying he just doesn`t bother about the world.``

As Musharraf addressed his increasingly nervous nation, the violence on the border continued to escalate after a relative lull last week.

Indian mortar fire today killed six civilians and wounded at least 16 more near the Pakistani town of Sialkot on the southern part of the border that divides Kashmir between the two nations. Four more died and 12 were wounded in the same area Sunday. India, which has suffered fewer civilian casulties, reported that one soldier died and three were wounded in heavy fire Sunday night.

The Pakistani and Indian military accuse each other of firing anti-tank weapons and heavy artillery, despite the thousands of villages that lie close to each side of the border. The narrow roads that lead away from the border carry a steady flow of fleeing villagers, their wagons piled high with their belongings.

Leaders of both nations are under intense international pressure to restrain their armies. President Bush called Sunday on Musharraf to fulfill his January promise to control Pakistani militants.

Britain`s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, landed in Pakistan tonight in a bid to defuse the crisis. He is scheduled to travel to India later in the week. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, is scheduled to travel to the region next week. Senior Pakistani officials said the Islamabad government decided Thursday to do everything necessary to stop the incursions into India`s territory, and Musharraf claimed in an interview Saturday with The Washington Post that the raids have stopped.

But Indian officials claim 50 to 60 fighters crossed over into Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan in the past month alone.

Swami, the Indian deputy minister for home affairs, said he was unconvinced by Musharraf`s pledges. ``I don`t know how far we can continue to believe him and how far he can continue to befool the world,`` Swami said.

He said India now has little reason to delay before commencing military strikes. ``I don`t think there`s anything left to wait for,`` he said. ``We`ve already been suffering with terrorism for two decades. I don`t think India is left with any other choice.``

But other officials and analysts said India would continue to spend the next several days trying further diplomatic sanctions and pressure to avert a military confrontation. Although India already has expelled Pakistan`s ambassador to New Delhi, Indian officials are seriously considering breaking off all diplomatic relations with Pakistan, a step that has never been formally taken since Pakistan was partitioned from British colonial India in 1947.

``There`s still room for a last-ditch international effort to avoid war,`` said Brahma Chellaney, the head of strategic affairs at the Center for Policy Research, a think-tank in New Delhi. ``War still isn`t imminent.``

But Chellaney said Musharraf`s stance would increase domestic pressure on India`s prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to go to war. ``He is perceived right now as a man who is only engaged in talk but no action,`` Chellaney said. ``This speech was like waving a red flag at a bull.``

Lighting The Nuclear Fire SNOW: Pakistan, for the second straight day, has tested a medium range missile, a surface to surface missile. We asked them not to do it. How do we regard this? Is this a provocation on the part of the Pakistani government?

RICE: We`re very disappointed that the Pakistani government decided to carry out these missile tests. We don`t see any point in it. And in fact, if they are routine, as the Pakistanis have said, the timing is not particularly good. Indeed, we`ve been involved in very aggressive diplomacy on the India-Pakistan issues.

We expect President Musharraf to live up to the obligations that he freely undertook on January 12 to stop cross-border infiltrations across the Line of Control. We are talking to the Indians about the importance of calm, of not escalating this conflict.

War is not going to serve anyone. But there are very intensive and coordinated efforts right now between the United States, Great Britain, the European Union and, indeed, the Russians to try and calm this crisis.

SNOW: You said war is not going to serve anyone. Are you fearful that it is a real possibility at this juncture?

RICE: Whenever you have two countries that have the history that Pakistan and India have, frankly, a history of miscalculation and a history of hostility, you have to be concerned about the escalating tensions over the last month or so, really tensions that began in December with the attack on the Indian parliament.

So, of course, everyone is concerned about the escalating tensions. But there is very aggressive diplomacy underway. And, again, I think everyone is trying to remind both sides that war would serve no one`s interests and, indeed, would not only be bad for peace and stability in the region, but would be very bad for Pakistan and for India.

SNOW: How secure is Pervez Musharraf right now?

RICE: We have every reason to believe that President Musharraf is secure in his power. He`s shown himself to be a confident leader. It is important that he use that confident leadership now to defuse this crisis.

We do believe that he freely undertook certain obligations about cross-border terrorism. We do believe that the Indians undertook certain representations that they would continue to act in a statesmanlike manner.

And we have been pleased that, thus far, the Prime Minister Vajpayee has done exactly that. So we expect the two sides to act responsibly here. But we have no reason to believe that President Musharraf is in anything but a position to act responsibly

The Perfect Murder http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/sum02-1.html

Untying the Kashmir Knot

Radha Kumar *

The Kashmir dispute, long on the sidelines internationally, has moved front and center since September 11. India has made use of changed opinions since the terror attacks on the United States to pressure Pakistan, which for decades has promoted a jihadist guerrilla movement within Jammu and Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority. When Islamic extremists mounted a murderous attack on the Indian parliament last December, New Delhi responded with a massive troop buildup along its border with Pakistan. The confrontation of the two nuclear-armed neighbors was temporarily contained by U.S. and European diplomacy but could flare up again at any moment. Are there more durable means of containing this 50-year dispute? Is there even a possible solution to the problem? This essay will attempt answers, with the important caveat that it is difficult to con-vey the complex and angry passions that the word ``Kashmir`` evokes.

For confirmation, one only has to visit a website for a Pakistani Islamic university, Markaz ad Dawa`ah Wal Irshad (Center for and Invitation to the Spread of Islam). The site featured a poll that asked whether America`s new war was against Islam or terrorists. The poll was programmed so as to elicit an ``against Islam`` response. Elsewhere, the site quoted a prominent Islamic cleric`s claim that the war in Afghanistan was a clash of civilizations: ``This battle will take [the] shape of the religious war of Hind in which the Muslims stood victorious,`` the cleric said, referring to the Mughal conquest of India.

Markaz ad Dawa`ah is the parent organi-zation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), a militia that the U.S. State Depart-ment added to its list of banned terrorist organizations this past January. Founded in 1994, the Lashkar is based in Pakistan but active in Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir. Its religious center is the 200-acre Markaz complex in Pakistan`s Punjab province, but its training camps are in Pakistani-held Azad Kashmir. Its mujahideen (holy warriors) are mostly Punjabi Pakistanis, and until recently it also drew heavily on the radical fringe of Britain`s Muslim diaspora, mostly of Pakistani origin, who provided it with funds and foot soldiers. After an attack on New Delhi`s historic Red Fort in December 2000, which the Lashkar boasts of on its website, Britain banned the group in February 2001. Since then, the supply of British Muslim foot soldiers has trailed off, though recent reports suggest that as much as $3 million a year still flows from Britain into the coffers of the Lashkar and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Mohammed`s Troops).

*Radha Kumar is a senior fellow and director of the Program on Ethnic Conflict and Peace Processes at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

Lighting The Nuclear Fire 12 Million Could Die at Once in an India-Pakistan Nuclear War

By THOM SHANKER

ASHINGTON, May 26 — An American intelligence assessment, completed this week as tensions between India and Pakistan intensified, warns that a full-scale nuclear exchange between the two rivals could kill up to 12 million people immediately and injure up to 7 million, Pentagon officials say.

Even a ``more limited`` nuclear war — as measured in number of warheads — would have cataclysmic results, overwhelming hospitals across Asia and requiring vast foreign assistance, particularly from the United States, to battle radioactive contamination, famine and disease, officials said.

``The humanitarian crisis that would result would be so great that every medical facility in the Middle East and Southwest Asia would be quickly overwhelmed,`` one Defense Department official said. ``The American military would have no choice but go in and help with the victims and to clean up.``

American estimates of the number of warheads in the Indian and Pakistani nuclear arsenals, and their capacity, remain classified. But Pentagon and administration officials, speaking in general terms, said Pakistan has ``a couple of dozen`` nuclear warheads and India ``several dozen.``

Pakistan`s nuclear warheads are comparable to the Hiroshima bomb, delivering a yield below 20 kilotons, or 20,000 tons of TNT, in explosive power. They can be delivered by jet — although India maintains an air-defense system superior to Pakistan`s — and by missile, Defense Department officials said. India`s nuclear warheads vary in explosive power depending on whether they are intended for delivery by aircraft or by missile, but are believed to carry a yield ``in the low 10`s of kilotons,`` one Pentagon official said.

For the second time this weekend, Pakistan conducted a missile test today, launching a missile with a reach of 175 miles on its maiden flight. Officials said the missile was made for striking Indian troops on the border. On Saturday, Pakistan tested a missile with a range of more than 900 miles.

Pentagon and administration officials who discussed the new intelligence assessment said they wanted to counter any false perception that India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, were simply going through a well-rehearsed dance of threat and counterthreat.

``We just don`t know where the `red lines` are any more,`` one administration official said, adding that President Bush and his senior advisers were not confident that the Indians and Pakistanis do, either.

Pentagon and administration officials said the analysis of Indian and Pakistani nuclear abilities, finished on Thursday, factored in current weather conditions to update casualty estimates of a nuclear exchange between the two nations.

Using military judgment to guess the targets and postulating that most but not all the weapons would be used, the intelligence estimated 9 million to 12 million deaths, and injuries ranging from 2 million to 7 million people, one Defense Department official said. ``But those are just the immediate casualties,`` the official added.

Not included in the estimate were subsequent deaths caused by urban firestorms ignited by the heat of a nuclear exchange, or deaths from long-term radiation, or the disease and starvation expected to spread.

The estimate also postulated that the nuclear weapons would explode on the surface and not in the air; such ``ground bursts`` dig up tons of soil and spread the poisonous, radioactive debris over a large area.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an arms control research organization that tracks nuclear capacity worldwide, estimates that India maintains a nuclear arsenal of 25 to 40 nuclear weapons, compared with 15 to 20 for Pakistan.

The institute reports that India can deliver nuclear warheads with two types of combat aircraft, the MIG-27 and the Jaguar, and that Pakistan could arm its F-16`s with nuclear bombs. India also has ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear payloads: the short-range Pritvi I, which can carry a warhead up to 155 miles, and a two-stage Agni missile, with a range of 1,500 miles.

Pakistan`s short-range missile, tested today, is called the Hatf III, or Ghaznavi; its longer-range missile, tested Saturday, is called the Ghauri.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on Friday that officials across the Bush administration were working to ``lower the temperature`` between India and Pakistan. ``There`s no question but that they have a capability of waging a nuclear war,`` he said at a Pentagon news conference. ``And needless to say, countries that are interested in that not happening think about those things.``

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/27/international/asia/27NUKE.html

Lighting The Nuclear Fire May 27, 2002

Pakistan`s arms race has left both sides no room for error

From Zahid Hussain in Islamabad







NEWS that Pakistan has been working flat out for more than three years to produce weapons-grade uranium merely supplements the reasons why the world should be intensely nervous about the confrontation between Islamabad and Delhi.

The two capitals have none of the safeguards that America and the Soviet Union established to prevent a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War.

They are linked by no working hotlines. The warning time — from launching to impact — is not more than five minutes. There is no room at all for a mistake or a misjudgment.

The two states became open nuclear weapon nations after they carried out test explosions in May 1998, and both have developed missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Estimates of the number of warheads each can command vary widely. Jane’s Defence Weekly maintains that Pakistan could have as many as 150 warheads against an Indian arsenal of 200 to 250. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security says that India probably has 50 to 100 plutonium-core nuclear warheads, and the Pakistanis 30 to 50 of highly enriched uranium.

Through its accelerated programme Pakistan is believed to have developed extra warheads over the last few months. Each was probably around 15 kilotonnes, equivalent to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, a physicist from the institute said.

Pakistan launched its nuclear programme in 1972 when the then President, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, announced his plans to develop atomic weapons at a secret meetings of scientists and top civil and military officials, just months after the country suffered a humiliating defeat in its war with India. The decision was driven by fears of Indian domination and a desire for prominence in the Islamic world.

India’s test explosion in 1974 gave further impetus to Pakistan’s plan for nuclearisation.

Security concerns were primary, but not the sole factor. Bhutto’s vision of an “Islamic bomb” also fuelled Islamabad’s nuclear ambition.

As early as 1975 Pakistan began clandestinely to acquire hardware and technology for the sophisticated centrifuges required. Through smuggling and black-market channels, Islamabad obtained the hardware for building a uranium enrichment plant in Kahuta, near Islamabad.

Most of the equipment was acquired from western European countries. From 1977 to 1980 Pakistan reportedly smuggled an entire plant for converting uranium powder into uranium hexafluoride, the material used as the feed for the Kahuta plant.

By the end of 1984 Pakistan had crossed the “red line” in successful uranium enrichment.

US intelligence concluded in 1986 that Kahuta had acquired nominal capability sufficient to produce enough weapons-grade material to build several bombs per year. The Pakistani nuclear weapon was based on a Chinese design and was more advanced than the first American nuclear device.

India’s nuclear intention became clear by the 1950s when Washington sought to check Indian production of thorium, an element central to the country’s work with fissionable uranium.

India exploded its first nuclear device in 1974. World reaction was mild.

The former Soviet Union helped India’s nuclear programme by providing two reactors. According to one report Moscow secretly sold about 100 tonnes of heavy water for the reactors.

India has since declared a policy of no first use of atomic weapons, but Pakistan has not forsworn such a step. Miriam Rajkumar, an Indian analyst at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: “This is Pakistan’s trump card.”

A Pakistani scientist said that the latest series of missile tests underscored that the country had the means to penetrate Indian defences, and that it could use nuclear weapon if its survival was threatened.

In Pakistan the military controls the nuclear trigger. President Musharraf, who is also the country’s military commander-in-chief, is the head of the country’s command and control system. Under pressure from the United States Pakistan in 2000 reorganised and outlined its nuclear system.

The control of nuclear keys in India is with the democratically elected government.

The most frightening delusion, defence analysts say, is India’s under-estimation of Pakistan’s nuclear capability. “Although Pakistan’s nuclear tests had dispelled earlier scepticism, senior Indian military and political leaders continue to express doubts on the operational capability and useability of the Pakistani arsenal,” a Pakistani analyst said.

According to defence experts in Pakistan the nuclear warheads are not permanently fixed to their delivery systems. The warheads and missiles are kept in six separate locations.

That provides a greater safety to the country’s nuclear weapon system, a defence analyst said. “But the entire process of fitting the warheads on the delivery system does not take more than 72 hours,” he added.



Sunday Times, UK

Lighting The Nuclear Fire http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/sum02-1.html

``A`` Is for Allah, ``J`` Is for Jihad

Craig Davis

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Education Center for Afghanistan, located in Peshawar, Pakistan, and operated by the Afghan mujahidin (holy warriors), published a series of primary education textbooks replete with images of Islamic militancy. These schoolbooks provided the mujahidin (who, after a ten-year struggle, drove the Soviet occupying forces from Afghanistan in 1989) with a medium for promoting political propaganda and inculcating values of Islamic militancy into a new generation of holy warriors prepared to conduct jihad against the enemies of Islam. Consider the following introduction to the Persian alphabet in a first-grade language arts book:

Alif [is for] Allah.

Allah is one.

Bi [is for] Father (baba).

Father goes to the mosque...

Pi [is for] Five (panj).

Islam has five pillars...

Ti [is for] Rifle (tufang).

Javad obtains rifles for the Mujahidin...

Jim [is for] Jihad.

Jihad is an obligation. My mom went to the jihad. Our brother gave water to the Mujahidin...

Dal [is for] Religion (din).

Our religion is Islam. The Russians are the enemies of the religion of Islam...

Zhi [is for] Good news (muzhdih).

The Mujahidin missiles rain down like dew on the Russians. My brother gave me good news that the Russians in our country taste defeat...

Shin [is for] Shakir.

Shakir conducts jihad with the sword. God becomes happy with the defeat of the Russians...

Zal [is for] Oppression (zulm).

Oppression is forbidden. The Russians are oppressors. We perform jihad against the oppressors...

Vav [is for] Nation (vatn).

Our nation is Afghanistan.... The Mujahidin made our country famous.... Our Muslim people are defeating the communists. The Mujahidin are making our dear country free.

As in this passage, the promotion of violence for the sake of Islam is the predominate theme throughout the mujahidin textbook series in both mathematics and language arts for grades one through six.

Although these violent images were officially edited out of the schoolbooks in 1992, my fieldwork in Afghanistan and among the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan in 1999 and 2000 revealed that the unedited versions of these textbooks were still in use in both countries. Aid workers reported that the unedited versions promoting violence occasionally surfaced in classrooms in Pakistan and were sanctioned by the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Peshawar`s secondhand bookshops regularly stocked the old textbooks, which are filled with messages of Islamic militancy and illustrations of tanks, rocket launchers, and automatic weapons.

*Craig Davis is a dual Ph.D. candidate in the departments of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and Religious Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He conducted fieldwork on Afghan education in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1999-2000, as a David L. Boren graduate fellow.

Lighting The Nuclear Fire http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/sum02-1.html

Untying the Kashmir Knot

Radha Kumar *

The Kashmir dispute, long on the sidelines internationally, has moved front and center since September 11. India has made use of changed opinions since the terror attacks on the United States to pressure Pakistan, which for decades has promoted a jihadist guerrilla movement within Jammu and Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority. When Islamic extremists mounted a murderous attack on the Indian parliament last December, New Delhi responded with a massive troop buildup along its border with Pakistan. The confrontation of the two nuclear-armed neighbors was temporarily contained by U.S. and European diplomacy but could flare up again at any moment. Are there more durable means of containing this 50-year dispute? Is there even a possible solution to the problem? This essay will attempt answers, with the important caveat that it is difficult to con-vey the complex and angry passions that the word ``Kashmir`` evokes.

For confirmation, one only has to visit a website for a Pakistani Islamic university, Markaz ad Dawa`ah Wal Irshad (Center for and Invitation to the Spread of Islam). The site featured a poll that asked whether America`s new war was against Islam or terrorists. The poll was programmed so as to elicit an ``against Islam`` response. Elsewhere, the site quoted a prominent Islamic cleric`s claim that the war in Afghanistan was a clash of civilizations: ``This battle will take [the] shape of the religious war of Hind in which the Muslims stood victorious,`` the cleric said, referring to the Mughal conquest of India.

Markaz ad Dawa`ah is the parent organi-zation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), a militia that the U.S. State Depart-ment added to its list of banned terrorist organizations this past January. Founded in 1994, the Lashkar is based in Pakistan but active in Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir. Its religious center is the 200-acre Markaz complex in Pakistan`s Punjab province, but its training camps are in Pakistani-held Azad Kashmir. Its mujahideen (holy warriors) are mostly Punjabi Pakistanis, and until recently it also drew heavily on the radical fringe of Britain`s Muslim diaspora, mostly of Pakistani origin, who provided it with funds and foot soldiers. After an attack on New Delhi`s historic Red Fort in December 2000, which the Lashkar boasts of on its website, Britain banned the group in February 2001. Since then, the supply of British Muslim foot soldiers has trailed off, though recent reports suggest that as much as $3 million a year still flows from Britain into the coffers of the Lashkar and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Mohammed`s Troops).

*Radha Kumar is a senior fellow and director of the Program on Ethnic Conflict and Peace Processes at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

Of Violent Birth and Peaceful Death Pakistan to crack down on militants

Musharraf speech today could hold key to peace

Rory McCarthy in Islamabad

Monday May 27, 2002

The Guardian

Pakistan`s president, Pervez Musharraf, last night came under mounting pressure to announce stringent curbs on Islamic militancy, after he tested a new short-range missile in the face of growing threats of war with India.

He will address his people in a televised speech today which holds the key to defusing tensions between the nuclear rivals. Gen Musharraf is expected to announce new curbs on the Islamist extremists. Reports suggest that he may toughen current anti-terrorist laws.

After a second day of Pakistani missile tests, India`s prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, last night warned that conflict was close at hand.

``There is a limit to our patience and tolerance,`` Mr Vajpayee said. He said that General Musharraf`s actions would be closely watched. ``The efforts that are going on, we will see to what extent they bear fruit, whether ongoing terrorism is stopped or not.``

George Bush yesterday expressed his ``strong reservations`` about Islamabad`s missile tests and called for restraint by the two countries. He said the pressure was on Pakistan`s ruler to keep his earlier pledges to tackle extremism. ``It is very important for President Musharraf to do what he said he`s going to do on terror,`` Mr Bush said.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is due to fly to Islamabad later this week to give Gen Musharraf a similar message, before heading to Delhi.

New attempts to engineer a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the subcontinent appeared to collapse at the weekend when Indian officials snubbed an offer for a meeting between the two leaders at a summit arranged by Russia`s President Vladimir Putin in Kazakhstan next month.

Although the US and Russia have warned Pakistan to halt its missile tests, more launches are scheduled for today and tomorrow. Yesterday Pakistan tested a new missile, the Ghaznavi, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to a target nearly 200 miles away. On Saturday, it launched its Ghauri missile, which has a range of 1,000 miles and can carry a nuclear warhead nearly twice the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

At least 16 villagers were killed at the weekend when Indian and Pakistani troops kept up a heavy barrage of artillery fire across ceasefire line which divides the disputed mountains of Kashmir.

Military sources said the Pakistani army had taken up positions behind a newly-flooded strategic canal which protects the city of Lahore, 30 minutes drive from the Indian border. The move indicated the seriousness of the threat of war, the sources said.

In an interview published yesterday, Gen Musharraf signalled that his outnumbered army was ready for battle. ``We are capable of an offensive defence. We`ll take the offensive into Indian territory,`` he told the Washington Post.

India and Pakistan have already fought three wars, and nearly began a fourth in the mountains of Kashmir in 1999.

The desert heat along the border and the onset of the monsoon season next month may delay a conflict until September. But another militant attack could trigger a retaliatory strike by India.

India holds Pakistan directly responsible for a series of militant attacks in Kashmir and New Delhi in the past six months. Mr Vajpayee has told Islamabad to halt its support for Islamist militants or face war. Yesterday he said he regretted that India had not struck after an attack on its parliament in December, and likened the crisis to the US war against al-Qaida. ``When the world is fighting terrorism _ how long can India tolerate terrorism?`` he said in a hard-hitting speech on TV. ``The infiltration of militants into India has to end``.

Militants in Pakistan have described how they are free to raise funds and train young fighters for the guerrilla war in Kashmir, with the knowledge of the state intelligence service.

But there is scepticism about his commitment to reining in the militants, who have long been funded and directed by the state intelligence agency. He made similar pledges in January, but attacks have continued. Till now Washington has withheld its criticism, because Pakistan is a vital ally in the hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban remnants. Now the pressure is mounting. Richard Armitage, the deputy US secretary of state, will visit Islamabad and New Delhi soon.

Guardian, UK