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Powell to Put End to India's Sibling Spat
War against terrorism: South Asia
Thursday, October 11, 2001
(00:04 IST) (13:34 ET)
By Peter Popham / Independent Digital

Pakistan, embraced as a key part of the solution to the terrorist menace, is actually a key part of the problem.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Source
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell flies to South Asia on Friday, and among his chief concerns will be to stop a sibling spat between India and Pakistan billowing into an unwelcome second front in the War on Terrorism.

On 1 October a suicide attack by so-called "fidayeen" militants on the State Legislature in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, left 38 dead and at least 70 injured. It was the first terrorist spectacular anywhere since 11 September, and the Indian authorities claimed it was the work of a militant group called Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of the Prophet Mohammed). Immediately after the attack, people who said they were from that group phoned media offices in India and claimed responsibility.

An unnamed senior official in the Indian government who spoke to The New York Times, said there remained a real danger that, if there were to be another big attack on Indian soil, India would respond by striking at militant training camps across the so-called Line of Control, the de facto border between Indian and Pakistan-ruled Kashmir.
(More: Independent Digital News Source)
2001 © Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.

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