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India and Pakistan 'reposition' their troops as tension mounts over parliament attack
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| 19 December 2001 |
By Rahul Bedi in New Delhi
The armies of nuclear rivals India and Pakistan have squared off along their northern borders as tension between them mounts following the suicide attack on New Delhi's parliament last week. Indian and Pakistani troops have also traded heavy artillery and small arms fire over their disputed border in northern Kashmir state.
Delhi accused Islamabad-backed militant groups of attacking its parliament on 13 December. Thirteen people, including the five attackers, died in the assault. Pakistan has dismissed India's allegation as baseless and inflammatory and moved its strike formations up to the Jammu border. Supported by armoured formations, around four divisions, or over 80,000 Pakistani troops, are believed to have fortified their positions in anticipation of an Indian attack.
However, Pakistani military spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi dismissed Indian reports of a troop build-up. "It is possible that in order to justify their own build-up, they [India] might be shifting the blame on to Pakistan," said General Qureshi.
Around a third of India's 1.2 million-strong army is permanently based in Kashmir to guard the border and conduct counter-insurgency operations against Muslim militants, who have been waging a civil war for an independent homeland for over 12 years. Over 35,000 people have died in the insurgency.
Indian military sources said they, too, were "re-organising" their armoured columns along the border, redeploying troops and commandeering trains to ferry soldiers to the frontier from across the country.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said India was keeping its options open in response to the attack on parliament. "The topic of the discussion should be whether or not there should be war and under what circumstances," he told parliament.
Referring to US appeals for restraint, Vajpayee said India had already reached "the pinnacle of tolerance" and would tackle terrorism alone, keeping its own security interests uppermost. "We don't expect anyone to fight for us. We don't expect anyone to jump into the battlefield for us. We will fight on our own," a combative Vajpayee declared.
"Those counselling us to show restraint should also give the same advice to our neighbour," he said, while rejecting Pakistan's offer to conduct a joint investigation into the attack on parliament. There is no possibility of a joint probe, Vajpayee said.
Meanwhile, India's chief of army staff, General S Padmanabhan, said that he had "acted in whatever manner it was appropriate to act". "I am not going to be stampeded into any kind of action. We are not a flappy army but a very confident army. We know precisely what we want to do," he added.
India claims to have "irrefutable" evidence that the attack on parliament was carried out jointly by two Pakistan-based militant groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, at the behest of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. The two groups are part of the 14-member United Jihad Council based at Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which is reportedly run by the ISI.
The US has reiterated its appeal to Delhi to defuse tension with Pakistan. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that India was within its rights to defend itself, but that in exercising that right it must pay heed to the dangerous regional security situation. "The President remains hopeful that leaders in the area will act responsibly, consistent with a manner that will not complicate a regional situation that is already very, very complicated," Fleischer said.
Military analysts, meanwhile, said India's options to strike militant bases, their 'launching pads' and logistic support centres inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir, would involve the air force and the army's special forces. The operational strategy, developed over years of planning, to strike militant bases in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir would include surgical bombing raids against 50-75 well-defined targets. These would be supplemented by ground attacks on militant camps by heliborne special forces in a multi-tiered operation.
Indian military strike objectives, however, would concentrate only on Pakistan-held Kashmir, which Islamabad claims is disputed but India claims as its own. Analysts were of the view that the US military presence in Pakistan would deter any nuclear retaliation from Islamabad.