-Caveat Lector- http://www.truthout.com/12.26A.India.Pak.Shoot.htm
WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! India, Pakistan Move Missile Batteries Closer to Shared Border By Neelesh Misra Associated Press Writer Tuesday, December 25, 2001; 2:44 PM NEW DELHI, India -- India moved ballistic missiles and troops to its tense border with Pakistan on Tuesday, ordering thousands of villagers to evacuate the disputed Kashmir region. The leaders of both South Asian nuclear rivals said they do not seek war but are prepared for it. The troop and military hardware movements were the latest sign of soaring tensions since a Dec. 13 suicide attack on Parliament that India blames on Pakistan-based militants. India says Pakistan's spy agency sponsored the attack with the help of two Islamic militant groups - the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed - which are battling to end Indian rule in Kashmir. India moved air force jets closer to the border Tuesday and smashed a dozen Pakistani bunkers. "We do not want war, but war is being thrust on us and we will have to face it," Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said at a public address at his residence. That sentiment was echoed by Pakistan's military leader, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who assured his country that the armed forces "are fully prepared and capable of defeating all challenges." Musharraf did say, however, that relations could improve if India sheds its "superiority complex" and deals with Pakistan "on an equal footing." Musharraf also used a speech marking the 125th birthday of the nation's founder to criticize Muslim extremists for tarnishing Islam's image by promoting hatred. In another move that could help ease tensions, his government on Tuesday briefly detained the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad. A major shift appeared to be under way regarding the groups, which had previously been allowed to openly raise money and recruit volunteers in Pakistan. On Monday, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba said it had closed its Islamabad office and would operate only in Kashmir. With the group's shutdown on Tuesday, major Islamic guerrilla groups now apparently have no official presence in Pakistan. Jaish-e-Mohammed and a third group, Harkat-ul Mujahedeen, closed their Pakistan offices shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes in America. Under orders from Pakistani security agencies, the groups have pledged to remove their billboards, banners and flags from major cities and agreed to stop soliciting donations. India and Muslim Pakistan have fought two wars in half a century over Kashmir, a mostly Muslim region that is divided between them but claimed by both. Both countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998. While Indian officials have hinted repeatedly at a possible military response to the Parliament attack, which killed 14 people including the five attackers, they have emphasized that war with Pakistan would be a last resort if diplomatic efforts to achieve their goals fail. Nonetheless, signs of the dispute between India and Pakistan were everywhere, and India's ambassador to Pakistan, Vijay Nambiar, warned the conflict was becoming difficult to control. "The situation is getting more and more difficult to contain. There is a very strong sense of mistrust," Nambiar said upon his return to New Delhi. He was recalled from Pakistan last week. In order to smooth troop and weapons transportation in the area of the border, Indian railroad authorities suspended about a dozen passenger train routes linking air bases and other military facilities. As some 2,000 Indian villagers along the Kashmir border moved out, Indian and Pakistani army troops continued to shell each other's positions and trade small arms fire. One Indian soldier was killed, a civilian truck damaged and its driver wounded, an army official said on condition of anonymity. Television showed Indian men and women hiding behind walls, screaming and ducking as bullets apparently soared over their heads. Border skirmishes are common between India and Pakistan along the frontier in Kashmir, but clashes have become more frequent since the suicide attack. The two countries share borders across four Indian states, including Kashmir. Indian gunners targeted Pakistani army positions and hit some 12 bunkers, said army spokesman Lt. Col. H.S. Oberoi. In New Delhi, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported that India had moved short-range missiles to the northern Punjab state, along the Pakistani border. Oberoi said Pakistani units were seen moving medium-range missile batteries to the border in Kashmir. An Indian Air Force official told The Associated Press that air force jets and weapons had been moved toward the border, after military authorities received concrete intelligence that Pakistan was moving its forces there. Thousands of soldiers are said to be massing near the border on both sides. Some in India are asking the government to end trade with Pakistan, prohibit its planes from flying through Indian air space, and even revoke a treaty on the sharing of river water that irrigates Pakistani agricultural farmland. Amid the clamor for war, there were voices demanding peace. In New Delhi, hundreds of women, children and social workers formed a human chain around the India Gate, a British-era sandstone gateway built in the memory of martyred soldiers, and urged the government not to wage war. They held placards that said: "We want peace, not war." Kashmir Clashes Reported NEW DELHI, Tuesday, Dec. 25 (Reuters) - India and Pakistan exchanged mortar and small-arms fire across their disputed border in Kashmir today, Indian officials said. The officials said that hundreds of frightened civilians had started leaving their homes in the area. There were no reports of casualties in the exchanges that ran through the night and were the latest sign of tension between the rivals after the Dec. 13 suicide attack on India's Parliament. India has blamed Pakistan and two Islamic groups for the attack. India says three border guards have been killed and half a dozen people injured on its side of the border in a week of cross-border exchanges. Pakistan says two civilians have been killed and four wounded on its side. December 25, 2001 Big Troop Buildup Mounted by India and Pakistan By CELIA W. DUGGER NEW DELHI, Dec. 24 - A warlike momentum is building between India and Pakistan as both countries mount large-scale troop buildups along the full length of their border in response to rising antagonism since a suicide attack this month on India's Parliament. India quickly blamed Pakistan and two Islamic groups operating openly there for the Dec. 13 assault. Western diplomats say the troop mobilizations now are the largest they have seen in more than a decade between the two nuclear adversaries, which have waged hot and cold wars for the last half century. Both nations say they are reacting defensively to each other's buildups and have every hope that strenuous efforts to resolve their differences through diplomacy will succeed. For now, they are preparing just in case. The Pakistani Army has canceled all leaves for its troops and told them to report for duty immediately. India is moving troops by the trainload from what one military official called "peace locations in south and central India" to its northwestern border with Pakistan. Military officials in both countries say the buildup is not just in Kashmir, the territory both claim, but along the international border that divides the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab from the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Sind. Neither side would give estimates of how many troops were in motion. Some Indian officials said reports of the buildup were exaggerated, but a senior official, when asked if it was the biggest in years, said, "No comment." Here in India's capital, a nasty contretemps has erupted over India's decision today to expel a man on Pakistan's diplomatic staff. The Indian authorities say he is a spy who may have fed intelligence to the suicide squad that attacked Parliament, a charge Pakistan dismissed as absurd. Those developments follow India's decision on Friday to recall its envoy to Pakistan for the first time in 30 years. Most policymakers and pundits in both countries still seem to think that the chain of events set off by the attack on Parliament will not lead to war, not least because the addition of nuclear arms to the region makes the risks appallingly high. But for other reasons, too, virtually nobody wants armed conflict. Many of these experts seem to be counting on the United States - which is suddenly, since Sept. 11, a crucial player in the region - to make the other country see sense. In Pakistan, the thinking goes, the United States cannot afford a war between India and Pakistan that would jeopardize the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his Qaeda leaders who may have fled into Pakistan; so the Americans will press India to settle for a tough diplomatic strategy. In India, the possibility that officials might escalate to war has put extreme pressure on the United States to turn the screws on Pakistan to shut down the militant groups implicated in the Parliament attack. On Thursday, President Bush stood in the Rose Garden on the 100th day since Sept. 11 and condemned attacks on India and the murderous ways of Lashkar-e-Taiba's, one of the two groups India has blamed for the attack on Parliament. The next day, he called on Pakistan's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, to shut Lashkar-e-Taiba and the other group, Jaish-e-Muhammad. In Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, the atmosphere in recent days has been normal, with people preparing for festivities on Tuesday, which is not only Christmas, but also a holiday on the birthday of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. But in India, there is a growing sense of unease about rising tensions after a week in which India's senior elected officials in effect issued an ultimatum to Pakistan: Either shut down the two Islamic militant groups blamed for the attack that killed 14 people, including the five assailants, or all options are open, including military action. Today, there was a flurry of activity from Pakistan in response to India's demands, but none of it satisfied India in the least. General Musharraf told reporters today in China, where he is on a state visit, that he would crack down on Lashkar-e- Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad if there was evidence to prove their guilt in the attack on Parliament. "We are taking a very comprehensive look at the entire issue of terrorism emanating from anywhere, especially in our own country," he said. But Indian officials insisted again today that there was already a wide enough trail of evidence about the two groups to justify Pakistan's immediate arrest of their leaders, as well as a shutdown of their activities. Privately, Indian officials are willing to give General Musharraf a little time to act. A senior Indian official today suggested a way out of a diplomatic cul-de-sac. Pakistan is demanding evidence, and India is refusing to share it directly with Pakistan. The official said the United States or another country that has seen India's case could tell Pakistan about it. Pakistan's state bank partly met one of India's demands today. It froze the assets of Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the Army of the Pure, which has sent hundreds of militants to fight Indian rule in Kashmir. But India's concerns that the militant groups will play a shell game, changing names and hats but not real identities, got a boost today. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who heads both Lashkar-e-Taiba and a powerful sister organization that runs hospitals and more than 130 schools, announced that he was resigning as head of Lashkar. Lashkar itself will be relocating all its operations to Kashmir, he said. Mr. Saeed said he would stay on as head of the social and religious group based near Lahore, Pakistan. He said the war against India would continue in Kashmir. "Now we have planned decisive attacks in Kashmir,"he is quoted as saying on the sister group's Web site. Vijay Nambiar, India's recalled high commissioner to Pakistan, told reporters in Islamabad today that Mr. Saeed's resignation was insufficient. "We want the culprits to be brought to book," he said. The spy case that came to a head today has also sharpened each side's rhetorical knives. The Pakistani Foreign Office fired the first rhetorical shot on Sunday with a statement charging that India kidnapped Muhammad Sharif Khan, a member of Pakistan's mission in New Delhi. "During the interrogation, he was stripped naked, severely beaten up and tortured, resulting in visible and internal injuries, which were also confirmed in the medical report," Pakistan's statement said. India returned fire through a news release from the Delhi police that charged that on a tip, Mr. Khan had been caught red-handed outside Nirula's restaurant accepting sensitive documents relating to atomic energy, nuclear research and railway security from Ajay Kumar, a senior executive assistant in a research office of the Indian Parliament. The news release said that Mr. Kumar had admitted giving Mr. Khan information over the last couple of years in exchange for money and that Mr. Khan had repeatedly asked about security arrangements around Parliament. This morning, an official involved in the investigation showed The New York Times a videotape of two men said to be Mr. Khan and Mr. Kumar having a bite to eat at Nirula's. Their faces appeared to be very similar to those on their official identification cards, though the sight angles were different, making certainty elusive. There was also no date on the video. The last frames on the video show a man said to be Mr. Khan walking and stiffly climbing into a van. The Indian authorities said this showed him being handed over to people from Pakistan's High Commission here after he was questioned. India denies that Mr. Khan was tortured. The authorities here say they strongly suspect that he may have been passing on information about Parliament that was used by the suicide squad on Dec. 13. Home Minister L. K. Advani today called the case against Mr. Khan and Mr. Kumar, the Indian Parliament staff member, a serious matter. Another Indian official involved in the investigation said: "What happened in Parliament needs much deeper investigation. Pakistan's terrorist groups are being provided information and targets by intelligence operatives working under cover in the Pakistan High Commission." Members of Mr. Khan's family, reached by phone today in the central Punjab town of Sargodha, were worried and proud, and they refused to discuss any details of his life. "This event is nothing personal," said his elder brother Raja Abdul Latif. "It is an event of national dimensions. Although we are saddened by the incident, we understand that he is doing a national duty. We would be happy even if our brother's life is sacrificed for the country." *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? 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