Asia Times: India/Pakistan


	May 25, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Delhi sets war sights on Indian-held Kashmir
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Despite a flurry of international peace-brokering missions - the most recent being that of Chris Patten, the European Union's external affairs commissioner who is in India after a visit to Pakistan - leaders in Islamabad and New Delhi are still pondering their military options.

Prominent defense analysts in India are suggesting that their leadership should launch strikes into Pakistan-administered Kashmir to destroy the militant camps that are widely accepted as being the bases for militants in their on-going attacks in the Indian part of Kashmir.

However, Pakistani army sources suggest that the manner in which Indian armed forces have escalated their activities in Indian-held Kashmir and the way in which they have sealed the Line of Control (LoC) that separates it from Pakistan Kashmir suggest a different story.

The sources say that in the event of war, India would certainly intensify its military exchanges at the borders, such as the LoC and the international boundary, and even at sea, but more than likely the real operation will be in Indian Kashmir against militant groups there.

Indian military strategists are said to believe that the militant organizations are vulnerable at this time. Many of the moderate leaders in the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) that groups various separatist organizations have agreed to participate in September's scheduled elections, and have adopted a ceasefire toward Indian troops in the state.

This has isolated the hardliners, who refuse to give up armed struggle, but their position could be undermined now that Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf has said that he will stop supporting armed insurgency. Previously, the proxy war that Pakistan waged in Kashmir was the only military superiority that it had over its much larger and better-equipped neighbor. India might now feel that the time is right to bring out an unrestrained iron fist in Kashmir.

In a recent interview, Asia Times Online spoke to a middle-ranking military commander of al-Badr, Masroor (not his real name). al-Badr was a wing of the bigger Jamaat-i-Islami during the jihad in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion from 1979 to 1989. After the fall of the communist regime in Afghanistan, al-Badr switched focus. It retained its training camps in Afghanistan, but used them to train Kashmiris. The largest Kashmiri militant group, the Hizbul Mujahideen, was entirely trained in al-Badr's camp in Khost in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

After the emergence of the Taliban in 1996, al-Badr was booted out of Afghanistan. It was given refuge by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and given training camps in Muzzafarabad. Subsequently, al-Badr severed all ties with the Jamaat-i-Islami leadership, and it is believed that it is now under the direct control of the ISI. It is the only Pakistani group fighting in Kashmir that has not been banned, and none of its offices have been closed.

Masroor was recovering from an injury sustained in fighting in Kashmir when he spoke to Asia Times Online.

ATol: What is the situation of the militant groups in Kashmir at present?

Masroor: From June, the mujahideen will begin their military operations as the snow starts to melt - it is the best time for hit and run operations. But this summer it seems that the militant groups will not perform well because of many factors.

ATol: What are these factors?

Masroor: Organizations like the Harkatul Mujahideen and the Jaish-i-Mohammed sent an unnecessary number of their members to Afghanistan. That was the wrong decision. Even the Taliban asked them not to come as the bombs were raining from the skies and there was no way to fight with the US troops. But they did not listen. I heard that the Harkatul sent 150 members to Mazar-i-Sharif. As they arrived, US planes bombed where they were staying. All were killed without firing a single bullet. Similarly, several hundred of their activists were arrested. This broke the backbone of these organizations. Even those left in Pakistan felt depressed. Our members also pressured us to send them to Afghanistan, but we held them back, and time proved that we were right. To add salt to the wounds, under US pressure Pakistan banned these organizations and arrested their leaders and activists. They were partly to blame for this. For instance, the Lashkar-i-Taiba, the Jaish-i-Mohammed and the Harkatul Mujahideen always try to take responsibility, even when acts were not committed by them. As a result, they remained on the US's suspect lists.

ATol: How has this damaged the Kashmiri freedom movement?

Masroor: After the recent border crisis [buildup of troops on the Indian border], the [Pakistani] government approached some organizations to recruit youths for training to send them to Kashmir, but due to the reasons I have mentioned, there was a very low turnout. Al-Badr has only 3,500 active members - this strength is not sufficient to keep the Kashmiri freedom movement alive.

ATol: Are you satisfied with government's Kashmir policy?

Masroor: We trust the Pakistan army as an institution and they have been supportive of us, but we differ from General Pervez Musharraf's current policies which aim to convert the Kashmiri struggle - which now is in the hands of Islamists - into a nationalist movement. This is not practically possible. We cannot motivate Pakistanis to fight in Kashmir for the cause of a national movement, but we can motivate a Muslim to fight for the cause of Islam. The overall government policy is dampening the jihadi sentiment in the country. One thing I would like to tell you. Only mujahideen are capable of engaging the Indian army in Kashmir for a long period of time, but the way in which the government has crushed the mujahideen, it has suppressed the overall jihadi spirit in the country. Some blame also goes to Islamic clerics who unnecessary engaged Pakistani youths in Afghanistan's factional fighting, and later with US troops. Now the army wants the militant groups to be active in Kashmir, but we are in fact short of manpower.

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