Word: kashmir
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...Kashmir is the locus of that terrible peril because, for most of the players, continuing conflict works. It works for the militants, who have found an escape from grinding poverty in the gun and the cash and prestige it attracts. That's true of both the indigenous Kashmiri militants and the "guest mujahedin" who come in from Pakistan, veterans of ISI-run training camps in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and former Taliban-ruled territory in Afghanistan, who subscribe to the same ideal of waging a purifying jihad...
...Trouble in Kashmir also works for Pakistan. While President Pervez Musharraf publicly denounces militant incursions from his side of the border, it would be political suicide for him to denounce their aims. Nor does the Pakistani President's rhetoric blind anyone to the memory that in 1999 he commanded the operation to seize strategic passes in the mountains of Kargil on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LOC). Moreover Musharraf's announcements of a crackdown on the militants ring more than a touch hollow. While five insurgent groups have been banned and bank accounts have been frozen, some...
...ignore the average Kashmiri's main complaints: the nagging injustice of Indian rule, rigged elections, rampant official corruption, police torture and murders by soldiers. And with the U.S. enthusiastically prosecuting its war on terror in Afghanistan, New Delhi feels the time is right for its own crackdown. In Kashmir, it is: even Kashmiri militants, who desire independence from India, agree that their guest mujahedin are as nasty as they are unwelcome. "They are trying to Talibanize Kashmir," says activist Mohammed Kaleem. "Their only objective is to destroy India." Mehbooba Mufti, vice president of the pro-India People's Democratic Party...
...publically flaunt their nuclear capabilities: Islamabad swiftly denounced one hard-line minister who did. Vajpayee told local newspaper editors in Jammu that as a first step New Delhi was considering abandoning a treaty that ensures the free flow of three rivers including the Indus, which originate in Indian-administered Kashmir and run through the mountains to irrigate Pakistan's northeastern bread basket. A second option is surgical strikes by the air force and commando teams on jihadi training camps in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. The third is a pounding of Pakistani posts along the LOC in Kashmir followed by a limited...
...have taken tell us that they have the capability to launch air strikes on the so-called camps, besides having the capacity to start a fierce ground offensive," says one Pakistani general. "We have set our defenses accordingly and we are prepared for a limited war in and around Kashmir." For now, Pakistan says it is attempting to placate its neighbor by targeting Islamic militants on its soil. Late last week, diplomats were indicating that India was considering giving Pakistan one last chance. But like India, Pakistan too has a limit to its patience. "No matter what Musharraf does...