Word: kargil
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...enemy is not nearly as unsettling as being bombed by them. This time last year, Pakistani troops were lobbing shells at the Indian army camps that appear along this highway with the regularity of gas stations in more civilized parts of the world. But then, this is the Kargil road, where nothing is ordinary...
...Some 433 km of nature-defying tarmac, the Kargil road twists through some of the most barrenly beautiful landscapes in Asia, starting at Srinagar in Kashmir and ending three Himalayan passes later on the edge of the Tibetan plateau at Leh in Ladakh. Halfway along, it brushes the disputed border between India and Pakistan, where a small but savage war was fought in 1999, virtually closing the road to all but the very foolish or the very brave. Since last year's cease-fire, however, one of the great road journeys in the world is again attracting tourists...
...Travelers usually stop overnight in the Shi'a enclave of Kargil?a fragment of Muslim Central Asia that somehow materialized in India. From there, a mountainous wonderland unfolds. The road wanders past Lamayuru monastery (looming amid somber peaks that belong on the cover of some fantasy novel), skirts Alchi monastery (with its incomparable 12th century frescoes), and then it's on to Leh, where the crumbling royal palace towers over rooftop pizza restaurants. More monasteries dot the surrounding valley, along with turquoise lakes and rows of whitewashed Buddhist chortens...
...currency among influential government officials and policymakers, especially in the wake of Sept. 11 and the Bush Administration's success in Iraq. Convincing the generals and their boss, Musharraf, who planned one of the most successful incursions in the Kashmir conflict?the capture of several strategic peaks in the Kargil region in 1999?is a tougher...
...Musharraf. He is a veteran of tight squeezes: no leader in Asia, perhaps in the world, has survived the number and magnitude of political crises that he has in the past few years. In 1999, as army chief, he crossed the Line of Control in Kashmir by capturing the Kargil Heights. Then he steered his country in a risky U-turn after Sept. 11 that led him to accept America's invitation to break with Afghanistan's Taliban, overhaul his internal security forces and act as host for the war on terror. And this past May he clashed with India...