Nuclear neighbors’ bluster intensifies

Associated Press

KUPWARA, India — India warned rival Pakistan on Wednesday that it’s not bluffing about a "decisive battle" against terrorism and told its soldiers on the tense Kashmir border to be ready for sacrifice.

Army officers responded by declaring that the troops were primed for war and were prepared to die as fears of war between the nuclear-armed rivals grew.

Cross-border shelling has killed dozens in the past week in divided Kashmir, which both nations claim in its entirety. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the Himalayan region.

In Islamabad, Pakistan’s top military leaders and Cabinet issued a statement endorsing efforts to resolve the dispute through negotiations, but warned that Pakistan was ready "to meet any contingency resolutely and with full force."

"The meeting also called on the international community to impress upon India the dangers inherent in the explosive situation created as a result of Indian belligerence and obduracy," the statement said.

India says it is being forced to fight a proxy war with Pakistan, which it accuses of training and arming Islamic militants who have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence or merger with Muslim Pakistan for 12 years. The militants have staged deadly attacks inside mostly Hindu India.

Islamabad says it has no control over the militants and provides them only moral, not material, support. In September, Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

In India, hundreds of soldiers with mine detectors and sniffer dogs patrolled the roads around the army base where Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed more than 600 troops on the cease-fire line dividing Kashmir.

Vajpayee asked the soldiers "to be ready for sacrifice. Your goal should be victory. It’s time to fight a decisive battle."

In Washington, D.C., the State Department appealed for an end to shelling in Kashmir and urged Pakistan to curb the influx of Islamic militants into the contested area. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said it was "a worrisome situation."

Vajpayee, meanwhile, said Pakistan should know that India is prepared for war.

"Whether our neighbor gets that signal or not, whether the world keeps record of that or not, we will write a new chapter of victory," he said. "Our neighbor has found a new way of fighting, through a proxy war."

Vajpayee said the attack last week on an army camp on the outskirts of Jammu, the winter capital of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state, by suspected Islamic militants posed a new challenge. The assault killed 34 people — mostly soldiers’ wives and children.

India blamed Pakistan and Islamic militants based there for the attack, expelled the Pakistani ambassador and reorganized maritime and ground forces under the military.