Posted on 05/27/2002 10:49:14 PM PDT by knak
NEW DELHI, India May 28 — India's defense minister said Monday that fighters from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida group, and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan are just across the border in Pakistan's Kashmir territory.
"We have information that the number of terrorists who are on the other side of the border in POK (are) people who have fled from Afghanistan, al-Qaida men and Talibanis," Defense Minister George Fernandes said in a television interview.
India refers to the region as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
A senior Indian security official in Kashmir told The Associated Press that intelligence on the presence of al-Qaida forces in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir has been available since the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
According to ground intelligence, including information from guerrilla training camps inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, there are between 2,500 and 3,000 militants in the region, the intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A large number of militants were believed to be al-Qaida members, he said, most of whom are believed to be Saudi citizens.
Fernandes spoke on independent Star News Television, responding to a speech given Monday night by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in which the Pakistani leader said there was no more infiltration of militants across the cease-fire line that separates the Indian and Pakistani portions of Kashmir.
The South Asian neighbors have fought two wars over Kashmir and remain sharply at odds over the region, which was divided between them after they gained independence from Britain in 1947 and is claimed in its entirety by both.
"For Musharraf to say that infiltration is now no more there, first of all it is an admission that it was there and they were responsible for that," Fernandes said. "But what he has said about the present situation is totally wrong."
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