Islamic militants with ties to Al Qaeda and possibly directed by Al Qaeda leaders are operating in the disputed territory of Kashmir, intelligence officials and analysts say, in what may be an effort to provoke a war between India and Pakistan.
The reports, from Indian, Pakistani and American agents and analysts, are conflicting. But they all add to the pressure on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to rein in militants in his country. At the same time, India and Pakistan have done little to reduce tensions that have the two nuclear powers edging toward war.
India on Tuesday condemned a Musharraf speech as “dangerous and disappointing.” It accused him of sponsoring the armed groups that are attacking Indian soldiers and civilians across the Kashmir Line of Control.
“The world recognizes that today the epicenter of international terrorism is in Pakistan,” said Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. “Terrorists targeting not only India but other countries, too, receive support from state structures in Pakistan.”
Pakistan denies backing terrorism in Kashmir, and Musharraf insisted in his speech that Pakistan is doing everything in its power to prevent the launching of terror attacks from Pakistani soil.
Musharraf’s willingness and ability to curtail the militant groups, some of which his government once sponsored, have emerged as a central issue in the region. Musharraf’s efforts will affect not only the U.S.-led fight against terrorism but also the world’s efforts to keep India and Pakistan from going to war.
India says Al Qaeda members have linked up with militants in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, but U.S. officials say they have no direct evidence of that.
Still, the U.S. does believe that Al Qaeda’s senior leadership has taken refuge in western Pakistan. And American officials say they are “deeply concerned” that Al Qaeda fugitives appear to be teaming up with Pakistani militants as they wage war against India in Kashmir.
“We do know that there are militants in Kashmir with ties to Al Qaeda,” said a U.S. intelligence official. “We don’t know if Al Qaeda are in Kashmir directing or conducting operations, but it is a matter of deep concern.”
The extremist groups blamed by India for carrying out the recent terrorist attacks that provoked the latest crisis in Kashmir have a long history of ties to Pakistan’s military establishment and to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization.
U.S. officials say they believe that most Al Qaeda fugitives from Afghanistan have taken refuge in the autonomous tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan, where they can count on the hospitality of friendly local tribes.
But analysts and sources close to Al Qaeda say that while some key leaders may still be hiding out in the tribal area of Waziristan, many Al Qaeda Arabs have dispersed across Pakistan, finding shelter with a vast network of militant Pakistani sympathizers and friends who trained with them in camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“If they had been given shelter at one time, then by now they have slipped away,” said Hamid Gul, who headed Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency in the 1980s when Pakistan’s government was openly assisting Arab fighters in Afghanistan, with U.S. help. “A stray dog couldn’t arrive in the tribal areas without everyone knowing. And also, the tribes would say, please don’t stay here, we don’t want the Americans coming and bombing us.”
Relationships with Arabs
According to Arif Jamal, an Islamabad-based expert on Islamic militants, at least 500,000 Pakistani holy warriors passed through military camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Not only do they closely identify with the Islamist causes embraced by bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but many of them have close personal relationships with the Arabs they encountered at the camps and could be counted on to help their former comrades hide from Pakistani and U.S. authorities, he said.
In a sign that Pakistan is continuing to offer cooperation in the U.S. effort to hunt down Al Qaeda fighters, Pakistani police accompanied by American FBI officials conducted raids overnight Monday in Peshawar, according to Pakistani police officials.
Between 70 and 100 people were detained, including Afghans, Pakistanis and about a dozen Arabs, the police officials said. There was no immediate indication that any senior Al Qaeda members were among the detained Arabs, the officials said.
The raid underscored the widely held suspicion that many of those believed to be aiding Al Qaeda are not in remote tribal areas but in the teeming, overpopulated urban jungles of Pakistan’s cities, where it is far easier to hide, said Ershad Mahmud, an expert on Islamic militants at the Islamabad-based Institute of Policy Studies.
“They are everywhere in Pakistan. They are in Karachi, Faisalabad, Lahore, Peshawar,” he said. “In the tribal areas, they are more vulnerable because everyone is looking for them there. In the cities, no one knows who they are.”
Despite claims by Musharraf that the Kashmiri separatist movement is an indigenous movement over which he has no control, most militant groups blamed by India for the latest terrorist attacks are Pakistan-based and consist mostly of Pakistanis schooled in the Islamic fundamentalist principles that were encouraged by Islamabad until Musharraf’s decision last fall to back the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism.
The militant groups have a history of ties to Al Qaeda, dating to the jihad in Afghanistan against occupying Soviet forces.
Operationally, the groups involved in Afghanistan and those involved in Kashmir were not linked, but their shared allegiance to the goal of establishing an Islamic state throughout the region has given them a common cause in the months since Musharraf abandoned the Taliban to back the U.S.-led war against terrorism, said Jamal, the expert on militants.
Musharraf lacks leverage
Whether the Pakistani government is still in a position to exert control over these groups is in question. When Musharraf began supporting the U.S.-led coalition, he lost much of his leverage over the most extreme militants, analysts say.
“After the Musharraf decision to support the war on terrorism he and his government lost credibility with these militant groups. They think Musharraf is an agent of the West against them,” Mahmud said.
With India threatening to go to war against Pakistan to stop terrorist attacks, there is a danger that Al Qaeda and its militant Pakistani allies will join forces to carry out a terrorist attack that would force India to carry out its threat, analysts say.
“Al Qaeda’s main enemy is not India but America, and they want to have Pakistan and India go to war because this whole American exercise in Afghanistan would go away,” said Imtiaz Alam, current affairs editor at the Lahore-based The News. “War with India would create chaos and give Al Qaeda breathing space in Afghanistan.”
The international community has stepped up pressure on both India and Pakistan to ease tensions. Yet Pakistan on Tuesday test-fired another missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads into India. It was the third such test since Saturday.
In Washington, Pentagon officials expressed concern that the threat of war would divert attention from the war on terrorism.
“Pakistan has been tremendously helpful in that effort, and we need that assistance going forward,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke. “We remain hopeful that they can and will stay committed to that effort.”
