An even better map is here but it is too large to post.
Posted on 12/22/2001 6:01:53 AM PST by TopQuark
| India and Pakistan on the brink of war |
| FROM COOMI KAPOOR IN DELHI AND ZAHID HUSSAIN IN ISLAMABAD |
| INDIA and Pakistan moved closer to a state of war yesterday, as Delhi recalled its envoy from Islamabad and sealed border crossings and both sides deployed thousands of reinforcements along their frontier. The sabre-rattling raised fears around the world that the two nuclear powers were on the brink of a new round of bloodshed, which would undermine the international coalition’s war against terror in the region. India began the escalation when it withdrew Vijay Nambiar, its High Commissioner in Islamabad. The move is more than a symbolic diplomatic protest. Only twice before, in 1965 and again in 1971, has Delhi recalled its envoy. On each occasion the two countries were at war shortly afterwards. The action followed growing demands across the political spectrum in India for the Army to attack two militant Islamic groups that are based across the border in Pakistan and accused of carrying out the attack last week on the Indian Parliament that left 14 dead, including the five assailants. India and Pakistan last clashed in 1999 in a mountain battle at Kargil in the disputed Kashmir province. Hundreds of Indian and Pakistani troops were killed. This time the stakes are even higher. In addition to reinforcements along the Line of Control, which separates the two sides in Kashmir, tanks, artillery and infantry have also been deployed along the normally peaceful Rajasthan-Sind border. Yesterday’s escalation began when India launched a verbal assault against its historic rival, accusing Pakistan of “sponsoring last week’s suicide attack on the Indian Parliament”. Pakistan hit back by charging the Indians with provocation and warning Delhi that it would defend itself if attacked. The threats and counter- threats caused alarm in Washington and London, which are preoccupied with trying to complete their operations against terrorist suspects in Afghanistan and instal a new government in Kabul. To achieve that they need stability in the region and the help of President Musharraf of Pakistan. Western sources said that they feared that the Pakistani leader was not able to control elements of his military and intelligence services, who were deliberately encouraging extremist groups in the hope of provoking a clash with India. Western officials privately appealed to India to show restraint, but the Government in Delhi was under mounting public pressure to respond decisively. In addition to recalling its envoy, India cut road and rail links, including the DelhiLahore bus service, which was opened only two years ago as part of a peace drive between the two neighbours. The Indian authorities alleged that the five gunmen involved in last week’s gun and grenade attack were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, two Kashmiri rebel groups based in Pakistan. Indian investigators claim that the conspiracy to storm Parliament House in Delhi was hatched in Pakistan and that the cellphone records of the dead assailants and the confessions of those arrested for abetting them establish Pakistan’s involvement. On Thursday the Indian Government produced one of the accused, an Indian named Kashmiri Mohammed Afzal, before the media. He said that the suicide squad was from Pakistan and that he was the link man between them and Jaish-e-Muhammad. The Indian Government is upset by what it considers the US’s refusal to accept the evidence of Pakistan’s role in continuing to foment terrorism in India and believes that the US is deliberately turning a blind eye because it does not want General Musharraf to be destabilised. Pakistan has rejected India’s accusations that its intelligence service supported the attack and said that it would take no action until India supplied proof. India on Thursday rejected a US request to share its evidence with Pakistan so that General Musharraf could crack down on the militants. Most defence observers agree that the situation in the region is the most serious since May 1999 when Pakistan’s military intrusion in Kashmir brought the two nations close to a full war. The danger was averted when Pakistan pulled out its troops from Kashmir’s Kargil mountain post under US pressure. |
Musharaf will be turned out. The ISI will handpick the successor.
India will invade. Indian defence officials said Pakistan had deployed more than four divisions, about 100,000 troops, along the frontier of Jammu and Kashmir state, and were fortifying their positions. Indian forces, estimated to be 400,000-strong, have been on high alert in the border region since the attack on parliament. A cabinet meeting on security, chaired by the prime minister, took place yesterday, a day after Mr Advani hinted that the government could sanction "hot pursuit" operations against militants based in Pakistan. "Those who threaten our security will have to pay the price," Mr Advani said on Indian television yesterday.
Mrs. Rao then continued reading the statement, uneventfully, until she reached the sentence that said the ambassador to Pakistan was being recalled. Wire service reporters grabbed their cellphones and rushed for the door, note pads flapping, to call in the news.
Mrs. Rao resumed her briefing. She reported that India had summoned a senior Pakistani diplomat and offered to hand over the bodies of the five members of the suicide squad who were killed in a shootout outside Parliament. The men had called Karachi, Pakistan, presumably to talk to their families, the night before the attack. Investigators found the phone numbers in the mobile phones left on the bodies, they said.
"It has been conclusively established they are Pakistani nationals," she said. Pakistan has declined to accept the bodies, saying India's unilateral determination of their nationality was unacceptable and again asking for a joint investigation of the attack. India says it is sharing evidence about the attack with the United States, France, Britain and others, but not with Pakistan. The police here in the capital have arrested four suspects they traced through phone numbers in the cellphones found on the bodies of the attackers. One of them, Muhammad Afzal, was allowed to give a brief interview on Thursday to television news stations as policemen stood guard. He said that Jaish-e-Muhammad had carried out the attack, that the Pakistani Army had provided weapons and that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency had given logistical support and weapons.
India today recalled its ambassador to Pakistan and ended bus and train service between the two countries to protest what it called Pakistan's failure to shut down two Pakistan-based groups India has accused of carrying out a suicide attack on Parliament last week.
India last recalled its ambassador to Pakistan 30 years ago, when India and Pakistan were at war.
An even better map is here but it is too large to post.
Since Pakistan actively supported the Taliban, and is actively complicit in the world's largest heroin manufacturing operation (all to the benefit of terrorism and ISI), I'd say that India has hit the nail on the head.
Ever since BCCI, Pakistan has been at the forefront of Islamist ambitions (culminating in the first and perhaps only "Muslim nuke"). Pakistan is a completely malevolent Islamist regime. And let's not forget that Jihad Johnny's last action was with Kashmiri militants (Chechnya and Kashmir being al Qaeda's main jihadist focus prior to 9/11).
Finally, it's difficult if not impossible to believe that India is acting without background discussions with the U.S. Call it a green-lighted proxy action.
India should share all the evidence it has and give Pakistan the chance to prove that it has a government before it does anything. The easiest way out is for Pakistan to publicly execute a few miscreant thugs. Heck, Mushraaf could then clean house a little in the process.
But instead, here we see the blessings of democracy in foreign policy. India has to move to placate an angry mob demanding JUSTICE; but, if India attacks there is no benefit in the short term or perhaps ever. What do they think they are going to get other than a Paki government under an even more militant ISI? IMHO, all that they'll accomplish is to produce a more bitter, disorganized enemy. They surely don't want to conquer Pakistan, because then they would have to govern it!
Yecch.
The prospects almost make genocide look good except for the fact that there would be no end to it. We would have an unrestrained Hindu power sandwiched amid a growing and increasingly militant Islamic population belt.
Maybe all those corporations that thought globalism under a Pax Americana was such a good deal might want to reconsider? Really, I'll pay more for tennis shoes, as long as they last more than a year.
India last recalled its ambassador to Pakistan 30 years ago, when India and Pakistan were at war.
I was thinking about that, too; a truly worrisome development...
I am not a panicking type, but I am afraid WWIII is unfolding as we speak.
I wish I could believe that. If you look at our foreign policy during the past decade and especially in the past few months, though, it has always been tilted toward what Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (who are most always on the same page) want in that region of the world.
I wonder how many more years our corporations will sell us out to China, Pakistan's benefactor, before the Chinese will become emboldened enough to throw us completely out of the Pacific.
I don't know much about India, but I do believe their values are somewhat more compatible with ours than are the "cadres" who run China. I hope history does not view our rapprochement with China as the event which sounded our death knell, but it just might.
In many ways, India is similar to Israel: both are democracies surrounded by dictatorships. I always regretted that, because of the past leanings of India to the Soviet Union, we took the side of Pakistan.
Today, the original reasons for this attitude are no longer in place, but because of our involvement with Afghanistan, we are in bed with Pakistan again. I doubt that this will last long, however.
In the meantime, should the war break out, our diplomatic efforts and position are far from clear. I am also worried that China will feel compelled to join in...
I have taken the liberty of substituting the U.S. for India and Afghanistan for Pakistan in your post.
I'm not saying we should not have acted; I'm just saying that by your reasoning regarding what India should now do, we might not have.
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