Rumsfeld set for Kashmir mission (Rumsfeld to try to drag both back from the abyss)

BBC News ^ | 5.30.02

[mhking]

Thursday, 30 May, 2002, 16:41 GMT 17:41 UK

Rumsfeld set for Kashmir mission

US President George W Bush is to send his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to India and Pakistan region in an attempt to quell rising tensions over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Mr Rumsfeld is expected to travel to the region next week as part of continuing efforts by the international community to prevent all-out war between the two nations.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also announced that he is to send his top aide - Richard Armitage - to the region to help in peace efforts.

Calling on Mr Musharraf to "live up to his word", Mr Bush said that incursions across the line of control with India must stop as war "will not serve their interests".

 

Troop movement

The move comes as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he was considering moving troops from Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan to its eastern border with India.

Officials said troops were on the move, and witnesses near the Afghan border said they had already seen trucks heading east.

The troops have been helping United States forces in their search for al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters.

Rashid Qureshi, General Musharraf's chief spokesman, said the movements would not affect Pakistan's relations with the US-led coalition and Islamabad would continue to give the "best possible support".

"The task of sealing the western border still continues to be done," he told AFP.

"Some extra troops have been moved to the eastern border."

However the US earlier expressed concern about reports of plans for the redeployment, saying it could hurt the effort to stop Taleban and al-Qaida fighters moving in and out of Afghanistan.

 

Correspondents say that without the troops' presence the coalition has little chance of complete success against al-Qaeda, many of whose leaders are thought to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal regions.

Witnesses in Pakistan's northwest frontier region said they had seen scores of army trucks moving troops.

Iqbal Khan, a storekeeper on the road near Miran Shah - a town on the Afghan border - told The Associated Press he had seen trucks moving towards Punjab from the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan.

An Indian army spokesman, meanwhile, said he was in "full knowledge" of the troop movement and "in complete control of the situation".

Sruti Kant told the AFP news agency that the troops were moving to areas bordering the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan.

Border build-up

The news came as three Indian policemen and two suspected Islamic militants were killed in an attack on a police base in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Tension has been increasing since two weeks ago, when three men India says were Pakistani-based Islamic militants attacked an army camp in Kashmir killing 31 soldiers and their families.

Since that attack, India and Pakistan have amassed a million men between them along their border, backed by missile batteries, tanks and fighter planes.

The continuing build-up follows a speech to Pakistani troops on Wednesday, in which General Musharraf said he would counter-attack if India started a conflict.

"The defence forces of the country are fully prepared... in case of any aggression from across the borders," General Musharraf told soldiers at an Pakistani air force base.

[GOP_1900AD]

If you honestly believe that the PRC have been moved aside, then why do they continue to ship arms to Pakistan, and why does the joint development of a Pakistani Navy / PLAN port at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz continue, well after the reputed "alliance" of Pakistan with the War on Terror? I could equally argue that the feigned "alliance" with the US by Musharraf is nothing more than a Machiavellian move to dupe the US into believing that we are creating a rift between Islamabad and Beijing. Of course, naturally, any such move would likely be followed up by a nasty "surprise" (at least it would come as a surprise to the current main stream of diplomatic thinking, esconced as it is in the "post historical" pseudo-logic typical of the writings of Francis Fukuyama and Thomas L. Friedman.)

[swarthyguy]

Nobody knows or talks about Gwadar; . Just recently, the Chinese announced increased construction there. There was a pic in a pakistani newspaper. Cosco runs a lot of shipping companies in the US; significant number of sealane chokepoints have significant Chinese control-Panama for instance.

[Bob J]

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[Lady In Blue]

If anybody can do it, Rumsfeld can! BTW,I read something in one of the British newspapers months ago that makes me laugh every time I think about it. In England,they refer to the secretary as "strong meat"! hehehe! So now when I see Rumsfeld's name in the media,mentally I think of Don "strong meat" Rumsfeld!

[blam]

I heard that Mansoor guy say tonight that the terrorists will probably do something terrible when Rumsfled shows up. Something that could 'trip' the whole shooting war off. Maybe we ought to pray for Rumsfeld.

[goody2shooz]

Ooh...Send Daschle instead...I greatly like this idea.

[GOP_1900AD]

I saw an article today that it is the major contender (shorter distance, cheaper right of way) for the terminus of the Tajik, Afghan, Pakistani pipeline(s) as well. How very convenient. And to think that some here in the US thought that the US oil companies would be the benefactors of the Afghan action. Perhaps, some duped US oil companies naively believe that they will benefit from it, but in fact, that's not who it's for.