Sunday, November 30, 2008

Pakistan makes troops threat over India standoff

Seen on The Sunday Times 30/11/2008 images from Getty Images and Routers. Related articles from other sources at the bottom of this page.
Relations between India and Pakistan were on a knife edge today as Indian authorities combed through the wreckage of last week's attacks on Bombay and interrogated the one Pakistani militant captured.

A senior Pakistani security official has warned that Pakistan would pull back troops fighting Islamist militants on the Afghan frontier if India builds up its forces on Pakistan's border, as it did after an attack by Pakistani militants on India's parliament in 2001.

He said the next 48 hours would be crucial for the two nuclear-armed neighbours, which have fought three wars since winning independence from Britain in 1947, and almost went to a fourth after the Indian parliament attacks.

"If something happens on that front, the war on terror won't be our priority," the senior security officer told journalists at a briefing.

"We'll take out everything from the western border. We won't leave anything there."

His threat was clearly designed to encourage the United States and its allies to temper India's response to the attacks, which it has blamed on "elements" in Pakistan – most likely the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged his support for India, now considered a U.S. ally, but Washington also has close ties to Pakistan, its key Muslim partner in the War on Terror.

Pakistani troops are currently engaged in their biggest operation so far against al Qaeda and Taleban militants near the border with Afghanistan, where U.S. intelligence believes Osama bin Laden is hiding.

India's coalition government, led by the Congress Party, is under enormous political pressure to respond to the Bombay attacks so that it does not appear soft on terrorism in the run-up to national elections due by May.

It is convening an all-party meeting today to discuss the attacks and answer criticism of its response – particularly why it took seven hours for counter-terrorist National Security Guard commandos to arrive in Bombay.

Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned early today, in the wake of the brutal Islamist attacks in Mumbai according to Indian television reports.

Meanwhile, there were fears that more Britons may yet be found dead in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Bombay, hours after India commandos killed the three gunmen who were still holed up in the building to end one of the bloodiest terror strikes to hit India.

The coordinated attacks began on Wednesday night, when terrorists struck ten sites including two luxury hotels, a backpacker bar, a Jewish community centre, and Bombay's main train station.

Police had put the death toll at 195, but revised it down this morning to 174, including one Briton, with 239 more injured.

This morning, security forces were still combing the Taj, searching for unexploded ordnance and corpses. The first pictures of the interior of the building showed a scene of smashed glass and splintered woodwork.

Unexploded grenades littered the floor beside the hotel pool.

National Security Guard commandos said they discovered 30 bodies in a single room after storming the Taj Mahal hotel.

The British Deputy High Commissioner in Mumbai, Vicki Treadell, said she could not rule out further British fatalities.

Asked if she could confirm whether all British nationals were accounted for, she said: "I can't confirm that because the picture has yet to be clarified.

Indian security forces now believes that ten or eleven terrorists were involved in the attack. They are working on the assumption that the men sailed from Karachi in Pakistan before hijacking a fishing boat and slaying its crew about halfway to Bombay.

That fishing vessel was found adrift off the city shore with the body of one dead man, his throat slit, and a satellite phone aboard.

That the number of terrorist suspects has been dramatically lowered since Wednesday, when it was thought that there were about 25 gunmen, has triggered fears among the Bombay public that some terrorists may yet be at large. In the chaos of Wednesday night, police sources had said that several had escaped.

Police sources have identified the one militant to be caught alive so far as Azam Amir Kasav, a 21-year-old from the town of Faridkot in the Pakistani province of Punjab.

He was caught after he opened fire with an automatic rifle at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Bombay's main train station, to kill indiscriminately. According to reports, he later pleaded not to be allowed to die after being shot by police.

Indian officials are convinced that the attack on Bombay bears the hallmark of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was also blamed for the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, where terrorists stormed the building with guns and grenades, taking hostages as part of a suicidal mission.

They also believe that Lashkar-e-Taiba does not act without the sanction of some part of Pakistan's shadowy security services – though how far up the chain leads is a matter of intense debate.

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's President, made an unprecedented offer on Friday to send the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to India to help with the investigation.

However, the ISI said it had not been consulted and Pakistan's government later reversed the decision and said it would send a lower-ranking official instead.

The u-turn will again raise questions over how much control Pakistan's civilian government has over the ISI.

Pakistan's civilian government has over the ISI.

Indian officials have denied reports that they had found evidence to suggest that two of the terrorists were British-born Pakistanis.

However, they have not yet ruled out the possibility of a British link.

A senior Indian intelligence source said that suggestions that British citizens of Pakistani origin had checked into the Taj Mahal Palace hotel some weeks before the attacks to reconnoitre the building were being taken seriously.

Credit card and passport details of thousands of guests will be pored over by forensic computer experts, he said.

Unconfirmed reports in the Indian media have suggested that the terrorists were able to stockpile explosives inside the hotel and intended to blow up the entire building.

A Foreign Office rapid deployment team, including members of the British Red Cross specialising in trauma, has flown to Bombay to provide assistance.
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