Posted on 05/13/2002 8:53:58 PM PDT by AM2000
India and the West are bracing for a hot, explosive summer in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda and its allies are expected to rock Pakistan with terrorist attacks. Their goal: Scare Islamabad into withdrawing permission for US-led coalition forces to hunt Al-Qaeda members inside Pakistan. The twist in the tale is that India is using the opportunity to renew efforts to make Musharraf stop terrorist infiltration into Kashmir.
India's assessment is that Musharraf's referendum failed to strengthen him. New Delhi believes the general has never been politically weaker.
But the real headache he faces is the coalition's military raids into Pakistan. Diplomatic sources say these have gone beyond scouting and were now a “full-scale military operation. “
Several hundred coalition troops are already inside Pakistan's tribal agencies. Combine a US infuriated at its failure to capture more than a few terrorist leaders and the fact that top Al-Qaeda-Taliban members have taken shelter in Punjab and Sindh. The result, says a Western diplomat, could be “Battlefield Pakistan.”
The attack on diplomats in Islamabad and suicide bombing in Karachi are seen as just the start to a wave of terror attacks designed to undermine Musharraf's green light for Western military action in Pakistan.
Musharraf is running scared. Indian sources say two or three of the new corps commander he has appointed have voiced dissent at allowing Western troops into Pakistan.
The Indian government is less than sympathetic to Musharraf's plight. “Our demands from December 13 are still on the table,” said a senior official. New Delhi's believes that given Musharraf's domestic weakness he is sure to do nothing about infiltration into Kashmir this summer.
Which is why New Delhi has sent smoke signals of belligerence to the West indicating a readiness to go beyond mobilisation. Islamabad is also playing the pressure game with the West. It says it can't help coalition forces so long as its border is under the gun. Untangling this Gordian knot is what US assistant secretary of state Christina Rocca hopes to do this week.
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