India Claims Proof of Foe Aiding Kashmir Rebels

While Indian troops prepared for a possible war with Pakistan, their government was pressing its case Wednesday with figures it insists prove that the Pakistani military is supporting guerrillas who cross into Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir.

In briefings for foreign envoys who are trying to avert a war between the two South Asian nations, Indian officials provided statistics meant to back their argument that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has failed to stop infiltration from areas his military controls.

In March, when many routes into Kashmir were covered with deep snow, 132 fighters--most of them Pakistanis and other “foreign mercenaries”--were able to slip over the Line of Control that divides the disputed region between the two nations, a senior Indian military source said.

The number dropped to 113 in April but then jumped to 165 during the first 27 days of this month, according to the source, who spoke on the condition that he not be named.

It is not possible to independently verify the Indian numbers.

The Indian contention reflects the growing war of words--and cross-border gunfire--as the two nations find themselves on the brink of a fourth war since 1947. On Wednesday, their forces continued to shell each other across the cease-fire line in Kashmir, killing 23 civilians.

Today, police said, two militants, supported by rocket fire from a nearby hill, entered an Indian police camp in Kashmir, killing three officers and wounding several others. They were then trapped inside the camp canteen, trading fire with police and paramilitary forces.

In Washington, the Bush administration warned Wednesday that “irresponsible elements” are exploiting tensions between India and Pakistan and could spark a cycle of violence that could lead to war.

“There is a danger that as tensions escalate, the leaders [of India and Pakistan] could find themselves in a situation in which irresponsible elements can spark a conflict,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Boucher warned that a “serious conflagration could ensue if events spiral out of control,” and he called on Musharraf to follow up on a pledge to prevent Muslim extremists from operating out of Pakistan.

In the Indian government’s count of recent infiltrations, weapons taken from slain militants--such as heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and large amounts of explosives--are among the evidence cited to suggest the Pakistani army’s support of the incursions, the senior military source said. Also cited was the evident mobility of the guerrillas.

“The entire [Line of Control] is heavily mined on both sides, but with certain gaps in the minefields which are recorded and in the knowledge of local army commanders,” he added. “This knowledge is duly passed on to the infiltrators, without which they would not be able to maneuver the way across the mine-infested terrain.”

Kashmir is a mainly Muslim area divided between India and Pakistan by the Line of Control, which was established after a 1971 war between the nations. Rebels in the section controlled by India, whose government is dominated by Hindus, have been fighting for an independent state, or union with mostly Muslim Pakistan.

Musharraf claimed in a speech Monday night that no militants were entering Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistani territory. Foreign leaders, including President Bush, reacted skeptically.

Making it clear that his government’s patience is running out, Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said Wednesday that Musharraf has had enough time to stop what New Delhi calls cross-border terrorism.

“It is vital that he recognize the urgency of the situation,” Singh warned after meeting with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw. The visiting official is one of several envoys trying to coax the nations, both of which have tested nuclear weapons, back from the brink.

“I believe that President Musharraf is serious” about ending terrorism, Straw told reporters. “But the test of all of these things has to be actions and not just words.”

At the root of the standoff, and diplomatic efforts to resolve it, are conflicting views of where legitimate struggle for freedom ends and terrorism begins.

India sees Kashmiri guerrillas as proxy warriors serving Pakistan, which denies providing anything but moral and political support to the militants.

Musharraf, while condemning attacks on civilians as terrorism, continues to defend the right of Kashmiris to wage a “freedom struggle” against Indian rule, even though separatist attacks frequently kill civilians. To most of Kashmir’s guerrillas, it is no less than a jihad, or Muslim holy struggle, against Hindus and anyone who aids them.

Musharraf banned two of the most ruthless groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, after India blamed them for a December attack on its Parliament building in New Delhi. But more than a dozen Kashmiri militant groups still operate in a loose coalition called the United Jihad Council, which has its headquarters in Muzaffarabad, the main town in the Pakistani-held part of Kashmir.

The council is headed by Syed Salahuddin, who is supreme commander of the militant group Hezb-ul-Moujahedeen.

He met on Feb. 1, 1996, with at least four officers from the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and “took an oath for continuation of jihad and unity of the militant outfits,” according to a senior source in India’s civilian intelligence.

Salahuddin, wanted on terrorism charges in India, is considered more moderate than many Kashmiri separatists and was almost forced off the United Jihad Council for announcing a unilateral cease-fire in July 2000. Any talk of laying down arms was quickly silenced.

“The fight against Indian troops will continue until they no longer occupy the land of Kashmir,” the council said in a May 16 statement.

Indian intelligence says Salahuddin and Hezb-ul-Moujahedeen have close ties to the Pakistani military, which the civilian intelligence source maintained is promoting them “in an attempt to give an indigenous color to militancy in Jammu and Kashmir,” the Indian state in Kashmir. The source spoke on condition that he not be named because of the clandestine nature of his work.

At a March 7 meeting in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, the United Jihad Council voted to expel four terrorist groups made up mainly of Pakistanis and Afghans, according to the intelligence officer. He identified the groups as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, as well as Harkat Moujahedeen and Al Badr. All are suspected of having links to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network.

“The ISI, which wants the United Jihad Council to be more focused and better coordinated in its activities, has asked the UJC to cut down its membership to between three and four” groups, the source added.

“The UJC also suggested that cadres of Jaish, Lashkar and Al Badr should join one of the larger Kashmiri groups of militants to circumvent the Pakistan government’s ban on them,” he said.

Reports from Pakistan say leaders of militant groups fighting in Kashmir have complained in recent days that Musharraf is abandoning them. Still, India isn’t buying it.

After three wars and 55 years of hostility, both countries are deft at a dangerous game of bait and bluff. Since Sept. 11, the U.S.-led war against terrorism has given each several new cards to play, which in turn increases the risk of miscalculation.

Since the December attack on its Parliament--which left 14 dead, including the five gunmen--India has insisted that it has the same right as the United States, Russia and Israel to strike against what it calls terrorist training camps and infrastructure.

Musharraf promised in a Jan. 12 speech that he wouldn’t allow his country to be a staging ground for terrorist attacks anywhere in the world. Indian skepticism turned to outrage May 14 when Kashmiri militants attacked an army camp and bus, killing more than 30 people, including the wives and children of soldiers.

Terrorist attacks on civilians and the Indian military’s human rights abuses are routine in a low-intensity conflict that has claimed more than 33,000 lives since 1990. So there is an element of strategy to New Delhi’s assertion that its patience has run out now.

When tensions were escalating in January, a senior aide to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in an interview that his government saw a window of opportunity open after Sept. 11 to force a settlement of the Kashmir dispute, which began when Britain granted India and Pakistan independence in 1947.

India has long opposed third-party mediation to help settle the competing claims over Kashmir, while Pakistan continues to press foreign governments, especially the U.S., to intervene. Pakistan hopes that foreign mediation would force India to let Kashmiris vote on independence.

India says its military options include limited airstrikes against what New Delhi claims is a network of training camps in the Pakistani-controlled area of Kashmir and in Pakistan itself.

Pakistan has denied that the camps exist, but supporters of the Kashmiri separatist movement interviewed by The Times in Pakistan last month named at least two that they said are operating in restricted areas of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier province. India says there are dozens more.

With U.S. troops in Pakistan to support the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, India might be betting that Washington could restrain Musharraf from retaliating for limited Indian attacks.

But Musharraf warned this week that Pakistan would fight “with full might” to defend itself. The struggle over Kashmir is such a deeply emotive issue in Pakistan that the general couldn’t expect to rule for long if he let Indian strikes go unanswered.

Pakistan sees the U.S. war against terrorism as leverage against India’s threatened attack. Musharraf insists that he can’t answer Washington’s call for more help tracking suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters on his nation’s western border with Afghanistan while India is threatening to attack from the east.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage plans to visit India and Pakistan next week, and the government in New Delhi will want to hear more than mere promises from Musharraf.

In his State of the Union address to Congress on Jan. 29, Bush singled out Musharraf for special praise.

“My hope is that all nations will heed our call and eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own,” Bush said. “Many nations are acting forcefully. Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf.”

Bush was less admiring during a European tour this week, when asked about Pakistan’s testing in recent days of missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

“I’m more concerned about insisting, along with other world leaders ... that President Musharraf show results in terms of stopping people from crossing the Line of Control,” Bush said, adding, “That’s what’s more important than the missile testing--that he perform.”

Watson is a staff writer and Barua is a correspondent in The Times’ New Delhi Bureau. Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.