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December 14, 2001, NYT Pakistan - India Relations May Worsen By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 5:21 a.m. ET NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Relations between India and Pakistan were already dismal before the terrorist attack on India's Parliament building. Now they may be in a downward spiral. Though few have publicly blamed Pakistan for the suicide attack that claimed 12 lives Thursday, there is concern it will increase tension between the nuclear rivals. ``It can't get worse, short of war,'' said K.P.S. Gill, one of India's leading anti-terrorism experts. Predictions were just as grim across the border. ``Relations between the two countries will nose-dive further,'' said Riffat Hussain, chairman of defense and strategic studies at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. ``If they don't accuse Pakistan, they have no one else to blame but themselves.'' Gunmen with explosives stormed the red sandstone complex and began firing in what has been called the worst breach of state security since the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee vowed revenge. ``Now the fight against terrorism has reached its last phase. We will fight a decisive battle to the end,'' Vajpayee told the nation. Vajpayee and India's senior leaders on Thursday were careful not to even whisper blame against Pakistan, with whom India has fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947. But by Friday, many other Indians were pointing straight at Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to the al-Qaida terrorism network blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. ``For long, we have waited for Pakistan to stop aiding terrorism in this country,'' said Vijay Kumar Malhotra, a senior leader of Vajpayee's party and member of Parliament. ``India should attack and destroy the terrorist camps in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.'' India has long accused Pakistan, today a key U.S. ally in its global war on terrorism, of fomenting terrorism by training and supporting the Islamic militants who have waged a 12-year insurgency in the disputed Himalayan province of Kashmir. The Islamic separatists are fighting for an independent Kashmir or a merger with Muslim Pakistan. Islamabad insists it offers the ``freedom fighters'' only moral and diplomatic support. India blamed Pakistan for the suicide attack that killed 40 people at the Kashmir state legislature on Oct. 1. A Pakistan-based militant group claimed credit, then later denied involvement. Pakistan's military leader, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was quick to condemn the attacks on Thursday. ``I was shocked to learn about the attack earlier today by armed intruders,'' Musharraf said. ``I have been saddened by the loss of life and the injuries suffered by Indian security personnel in the attack.'' But two words in Musharraf's statement -- calling the attackers ``armed intruders'' instead of ``terrorists'' -- raised eyebrows and suspicion in New Delhi on Friday. Pramod Mahajan, India's parliamentary affairs minister, was asked if the attackers were from Pakistan. ``General Musharraf called them `armed intruders.' He was not even ready to use the word terrorists,'' Mahajan told Star News TV. ``That should be enough to answer your question.'' Kanti Bajpai, a professor of disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said Musharraf made a grave error. ``Musharraf should call them terrorists,'' he said. ``His statement, that's asking for trouble.'' Bajpai noted that India blames Pakistan for having supported the Taliban, which harbored the al-Qaida terrorism network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. He expects India to retaliate against Pakistan. ``They may take their time over it, to show the world that they did it with due process, but I think the chances are pretty high,'' he said. J.N. Dixit, a former foreign secretary and high commissioner to Pakistan, said Thursday's strike should be a warning to the United States that its global war on terrorism had failed in India. Washington had called on both India and Pakistan to use restraint when cross-border shelling increased after the Oct. 1 suicide attack on the Kashmir state legislature. ``Despite the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign, terrorists still remain strong and they have devastating reach,'' Dixit said. ``This spectacular incident ... will result in India having to reconsider the American demand to practice restraint.'' Vajpayee told President Bush in a letter that Pakistanis were to blame for the Oct. 1 suicide attack. ``There is a limit to the patience of the people of India,'' he said then. Bush telephoned Vajpayee Thursday night to offer condolences and FBI and State Department counterterrorism teams to help in an investigation. ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
