Monday, December 7, 2009

Al-Qaeda may try to provoke India-Pakistan conflict


When Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week al Qaeda and its allies might try to provoke a conflict between India and Pakistan, he articulated what many see as the biggest risk to U.S. plans for the region. A major attack on India by Islamist militants could lead to retaliation by a country still bruised by last year's assault on Mumbai, further destabilising nuclear-armed Pakistan. "The Pakistanis are really frustrated. They keep being told to 'do more'," said Kamran Bokhari at U.S. think-tank. Pakistan has been worried about the possibility of another militant attack on India but unsure how to prevent it. Pakistan is already fighting militants who attacked its military headquarters in October and last week killed at least 40 people in a nearby mosque used by the army. When they can't guarantee there will be no attacks in their own country, they can't guarantee India won't be attacked. India like always angry at Pakistan's refusal to act against the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group blamed for killing 166 people in the Mumbai attacks, has rejected calls for talks and suggested it could even retaliate were there to be another major attack on Indian soil. As a result, tension is at its worst since 2002 when one million men were mobilised on the border after a December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament by Pakistan-based militants. "It's not as bad as 2002," said Praveen Swami, a defence expert at the newspaper The Hindu. "But it is the worst it has been since then." It is a situation which al Qaeda may try to exploit. The Pakistani army, taunted by the Taliban for fighting its own people and killing fellow Muslims, would have no choice but to respond against even limited strikes by India."There is no way they could not respond," said Bokhari, adding that the army would otherwise lose all credibility. Now the question that arises here is why there is deadlock in between Pakistan and India.I see the deadlock as a sign of a failure of U.S. diplomacy and evidence of deep divisions within the U.S. administration over how to handle Pakistan.Ever since India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, the United States has played unofficial peace broker.While it has quietly encouraged India and Pakistan to talk, it seems to have no clear idea how to end the stalemate."There is no real diplomacy going on," said Tarak Barkawi, a defence expert at Britain's Cambridge University. Without diplomacy, Washington had little to offer Pakistan except widening Predator drone attacks. At least in Afghanistan, U.S. troops could try to provide security and economic development. "All we can do in Pakistan is blow things up ... blow things up from afar," he said. "The whole presence of America in Pakistan is a destructive one."Nor does it have much to offer the Indian government, reluctant to start a conflict which might aggravate instability in its neighbour and determined to see off the threat it believes is posed by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. "I think they are very worried about Pakistan," said Swami. "But they don't know what to do about it."

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