Word: kashmir
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...heart of the dispute over Kashmir is a conflict of definitions. The Kashmir problem has its roots in a botched decolonization that took place more than 50 years ago, when the British partitioned India so as to create a majority Muslim state, Pakistan. Kashmir had a Muslim majority but a Hindu prince, who chose to join India; its status has been in dispute ever since. For Pakistan, Kashmir has always been seen in terms of a national liberation struggle, and those fighting there are viewed as soldiers in an honorable cause. India, for its part, sees the guerrillas who cross...
SOUTH ASIA New Tensions on the Line of Control Pakistan began pulling back troops from its border with Afghanistan as President Pervez Musharraf warned that they would be deployed along the Indian frontier if tensions over Kashmir are not defused. Such a move would be largely symbolic, since Pakistan and India already have about a million soldiers along their border. Echoing - and perhaps assuaging - India's feelings, President George W. Bush demanded that Pakistan crack down on Islamic militants slipping across the Line of Control dividing Kashmir. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is to visit the region this week...
...Support for insurgents in Kashmir has long been part of the Pakistani military's game plan, as a means of keeping up the pressure over the region's status without risking a direct confrontation with its militarily stronger rival. (In any developing combat situation, it also gives the Pakistanis a useful tactical presence behind Indian lines in Kashmir.) Pakistan is loath to ease the pressure in Kashmir without guarantees that its political demands over the region - for its fate to be determined in a U.N.-supervised referendum - will be addressed. Restoring peace in order to maintain the status quo, from...
...nuclear confrontation, and yet it may have reached the point where it can no longer refrain from responding to attacks from Pakistani-controlled territory. India could opt to launch air strikes or even commando raids at training camps used by the insurgents on the Pakistani-controlled side of Kashmir and in Pakistan itself. But once battle is joined, it may quickly assume a dangerous logic of escalation...
...time to ease the crisis, constantly reminding both sides of the dangers to their own interests inherent in a confrontation. But confrontation between India and Pakistan certainly works in favor of al-Qaeda elements that are increasingly active in Pakistan, and a substantial number of the insurgents sent into Kashmir got their original training in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. It's a relative certainty that any Western efforts to defuse the crisis will be matched by extremist attempts to exacerbate it by launching new terror strikes against India in the coming weeks...