STORM2K

Tensions are rising between Pakistan and India as Pakistan is moving troops from the Afganistan border to the India border following the Mumbai terrorist attacks.Lets hope that those two countries dont cross the line and go to war because both have nuclear weapons.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistani troops have been moved to the Indian border amid fears of an Indian ground incursion, two Pakistani military officials told CNN on Friday.


The troops were deployed from Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan, where forces have been battling Taliban and al Qaeda militants in North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Pakistan's armed forces have been on high alert in anticipation of a possible conflict with India following last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which killed 160 people.

India believes the 10 men who carried out the attacks were trained at a terrorist camp in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir.

A senior official said the troops had been moved from areas where there are no active military operations, and emphasized that troop levels have not been depleted in areas where soldiers are battling militants, such as the Swat Valley and near Peshawar in the North West region.

In addition to the move, leave for all military personnel has been restricted and all troops were called back to active duty, the senior official said.

Asked for a reaction to the development, Husain Haqqani. Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said, "Pakistan does not seek war, but we need to be vigilant against threats of war emanating from the other side of our eastern





http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiap ... index.html

Bad move for Pakistan. India has a much larger military, and a much better developed nuclear arsenal.

I really hope war does not develop between these countries.

US warning on South Asia tension

The United States has urged India and Pakistan to avoid unnecessarily raising tension amid reports of troop movements to the border.

Some Pakistani troops have been redeployed from the north-west and some leave cancelled, army officials said.

India earlier advised its citizens against travelling to Pakistan amid the continuing tension in the wake of last month's deadly attacks in Mumbai.

The attacks on several targets in the city left more than 170 people dead.

'Close contact'

A Pakistani military spokesman called its movements a minimum defensive measure.

And a senior security official said a limited number of soldiers had been pulled out from non-essential positions on the Afghan border and areas where there were no military operations.

Pakistani media reported that troops were strengthening some positions on the border with India.

The Line of Control in divided Kashmir and the towns of Kasur and Sialkot were areas mentioned in the reports.

Air strikes against militants in the restive Swat and Bajaur regions had been scaled down as some of the airpower had to be redeployed to the country's eastern border, a senior Pakistani military official told Asif Farooqi, the Islamabad-based correspondent of the BBC Urdu service.

There have been reports of possible forthcoming "surgical" strikes by India on the headquarters and camps of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group India blames for the Mumbai attacks.

The group and Pakistan's government deny any involvement.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: "We hope that both sides will avoid taking steps that will unnecessarily raise tensions during these already tense times."

He said the US remained "in close contact with both countries to urge closer co-operation in investigating the Mumbai attacks and in fighting terrorism generally".

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says the troop movements do not appear to be greatly significant and that both countries have said they want to avoid military conflict. However they warn they will act if provoked.

But our correspondent says any significant cut in the Pakistani military presence along the Afghan border would worry Washington, which relies on Islamabad to stem cross-border Taleban attacks on Nato forces.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discussed the Pakistan situation with his military chiefs on Friday.

The Indian foreign ministry advised Indian nationals not to travel to Pakistan following recent bombings in the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Multan.

One woman was killed and four people injured on Wednesday in Lahore.

Media reports said a number of Indians were detained although this has not been officially confirmed.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said in Delhi there were reports the Indians were "being accused of being terrorists".

"Indian citizens are therefore advised that it would be unsafe for them to travel or be in Pakistan."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 800329.stm

This deployment of Pakistan troops to the India border and take them out of the Afganistan/Pakistan border is already affecting the war against terrorism in NW Pakistan.

Fight against Al-Qaeda falls to the backburner in NW Pakistan

WASHINGTON – Pakistan's reported decision to relocate thousands of troops away from the Afghanistan border toward India threatens the critical U.S. foreign policy aim of relying on the south Asian ally's military in the global battle against terrorism.

Pakistan's sudden military shift catches two administrations in mid-transition, presenting Obama with a dangerous spike in tension that his predecessor has been unable to prevent.

As President George W. Bush found out, the United States can't wage either fight alone and can't always persuade even well-meaning allies to set aside their own agendas and domestic politics.

To win in Afghanistan rather than merely hold ground, the United States and its allies must find a way to seal off the militants' redoubts across the forbidding mountainous border with Pakistan. The U.S. can't do that without Pakistan's help, and Pakistani and Afghan militants know it.

Bush administration officials have been shuttling to New Delhi and Islamabad for weeks following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, pleading with both sides not to let well-founded suspicions that the attacks originated in Pakistan become an excuse for new conflict. India and Pakistan have fought three wars, and enmity against the other has been an organizing principle for leaders of each nuclear-armed country.

If Pakistan yanks fighting forces away from what the U.S. considers the good war against terrorism in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, it will bear out U.S. fears of a ripple effect and show how easily militants can exploit the old rivalry.

"We hope that both sides will avoid taking steps that will unnecessarily raise tensions during these already tense times," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Friday.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081226/ap_ ... analysis_4

Pakistan is a questionable "ally" in the war on terror.


Pakistani intel service behind new terror plot: India

Indian police detained three Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed operatives planning to execute an attack in Jammu and Kashmir who have been linked back to Pakistan's notorious intelligence service. The men "planned to set off a massive explosion in India on the lines of the truck bomb that destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Sept. 20," The Hindustan Times reported.

Indian police arrested the three men on Dec. 21 in Jammu and Kashmir after receiving intelligence of a major plot to conduct an attack inside India. One of the terrorists, Gulam Fareed, was identified as a Pakistani soldier. Fareed joined the Pakistani Army in 2001 and was a member of the al-Qaeda affiliate Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami prior to joining Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The Pakistani Army denied Fareed is an active duty soldier. An unnamed Pakistani official told Dawn that Fareed deserted the Army on June 6, 2008.

The three operatives trained in a terror camp outside of the military garrison city of Rawalpindi that is operated by Mufti Abdul Rauf, the brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed leader and founder Masood Azhar, Director-General of Police Kuldeep Khoda said during a press briefing. Azhar was placed under house arrest by Pakistani police after the late-November Mumbai terror assault.

Over the summer, the three-man terror cell was activated to conduct the attack inside India. "The trio was ordered in August to report to the Jaish’s Karachi office, located next to the Muleer army cantonment," Khoda said. "One of them was trained to carry out a suicide attack by ramming an explosives-laden vehicle into a target."

While in Karachi, two Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency operatives named Hamzala and Osama provided the Jaish operatives with visas and plane tickets to Bangladesh. On Sept. 15, the Jaish operatives arrived in Bangladesh and were met by an ISI officer named Nadeem who arranged for their travel into India. The operatives entered India on Dec. 18 and arrived in Jammu and Kashmir on Dec. 20, where they were to "get a consignment of arms and the location of their target from a local guide."

Units from India's Special Operations Group and a Central Reserve Police Force detained the men during a raid on Dec. 21.

The detention of the three Jaish operatives places more pressure on Pakistan to crack down on the multitude of terrorist groups and the elements within the intelligence and security services that support them.

Earlier this week, a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who was involved in the planning of the Mumbai assault said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency supports the terror group's operations inside India and Pakistan.

The United States and the United Nations have urged Pakistan to rein in the terror groups and purge the military and intelligence services that support them.

Pakistan has responded by placing Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed under house arrest, detaining several Lashkar operatives, and shuttering the offices of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front group for Lashkar. But Jamaat’s sprawling Muridke complex is still open and Hafiz is free to move about Lahore.

SCENARIOS: Assessing risks of India, Pakistan confrontation
Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:56pm GMT

By Simon Cameron-Moore and Alistair Scrutton

ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Since militants killed 179 people in an assault on Mumbai, India has withstood internal pressure to unleash a military attack on Pakistan soil.

Internal dynamics and diplomatic responses are still evolving since the November 26-29 attack. With relations fraught between rivals who have fought three wars, here is a look at some scenarios that could unfold.

WAR

Highly improbable. No one, except the militants, would want it. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee says India is keeping all options open, comments the Indian media have widely interpreted to mean that a military response is still possible. But he has also said that war "is no solution" and accused Pakistan of creating "war hysteria" to deflect blame.

Tensions flared when Pakistan accused Indian warplanes of air space violations on December 13 and said its own fighter jets were scrambled. India denies any incursion. Pakistan has canceled army leave and shifted some troops from its western border with Afghanistan to the eastern border with India.

The two countries went to the brink of war in 2002 after Pakistani jihadi groups attacked the Indian parliament in 2001, but ultimately the risk of nuclear conflict made it a crazy option. Any kind of Indian military action is likely to provoke retaliation, either from jihadis or worse the Pakistani military. India's strength lies in its ability to win global diplomatic support to pressure Pakistan to clean its house of jihadis.

Pressure on New Delhi to pursue a military option would rise if India was attacked again.

PEACE PROCESS

India has imposed a "pause" on a peace process begun in 2004, which had brought better ties, and also canceled a cricket tour to Pakistan next month. India wants Pakistan to crack down on groups analysts say have been favored by the Pakistani military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Pakistan denies any links to the Mumbai attacks, blaming "non-state actors," and says India has provided no evidence for it to investigate. India says it has given Pakistan specific details, including an account by the lone surviving gunman.

A crackdown like one by then military ruler General Pervez Musharraf in 2002, which was widely regarded as a sham, will satisfy neither New Delhi nor Washington.

In what was seen in India as a tit-for-tat move, Pakistan media reported that several Indian nationals had been held after a bombing in the city of Lahore. India then warned its citizens it would be unsafe to travel to or remain in Pakistan.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration is expected to encourage settlement of the Kashmir dispute, a step seen as part of the process to stabilize Afghanistan.

India probably realizes it's better to engage Pakistan than ignore it in the long-run, and it would like to help civilian leaders establish authority over the generals.

U.S. pressure to move more swiftly in peace talks won't cut much ice with India, so long as it feels uncomfortable about the durability of Pakistan's democracy. In the short-run the Indian government has an election to fight by May, and will need to show its public results before it resumes the peace process.

NO WAR, NO PEACE

If, analysts say, the Pakistani military refuses to abandon old jihadi assets, there will be no war and no peace. Instead there's a real danger both sides could use non-state proxies to destabilize each others' borders. It would be a return to the pre-2002 era, and the world will be haunted by periodic crises between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

That, in turn, will complicate the West's efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. Some jihadi groups that had been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir have built ties with al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal belt on the Afghan border, which the Pakistan army is struggling to control.

If these groups are allowed to thrive they will continue to provide gateways for alienated young Muslims to join a global jihad against their own governments.

REPERCUSSIONS FOR INDIA

The Indian government faces widespread voter anger at the security and intelligence failures that led to Mumbai. The opposition BJP has made it a major campaign issue and many analysts expect an election backlash against the ruling Congress party. But recent state poll wins by Congress, as well as the high-profile appointment of former Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram as the new home minister, have helped take the wind out of the BJP's sails.

The BJP has also been criticized in some quarters for being opportunistic in making terrorism an election issue.

The government has rushed through a tough anti-terrorism law, seen as a bid to allay public anger.

REPERCUSSIONS FOR PAKISTAN

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's offer on November 28 to send the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency to New Delhi following a request from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went down badly in some quarters of the military. But since then there has been no indication the civilian government and military leadership are out of step, even if they disagree on whether the militants should be protected or dumped.

If the crisis worsened, it might bring any differences into the open, risky for a young civilian government dependent on army support for Pakistan's transition to democracy.

Pakistan already reels from an Islamist insurgency in the northwest. A crackdown on militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad based in the central province of Punjab could end up driving more of their fighters into the arms of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the northwest. That would reinforce the insurgency in Afghanistan and pose more dangers for Pakistan.

(Editing by Matthias Williams and Alex Richardson)

First was Pakistan moving troops to the border with India.Now is India doing the same.

India moves troops towards border

Pakistan has been over-run by terrorists, and
Pakistani authorities aided terrorists who planned the
Mumbai attacks. Numerous terrorist training camps
are thriving in Pakistan. If Pakistan does not turn over
the terrorists, then India may have to go into Pakistan
and take the terrorists by force.