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 US plans for the region. A major attack on India by militants could lead to retaliation by a country still bruised by last year's assault on Mumbai, further destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan. “The Pakistanis are really frustrated. They keep being told to ‘do more',” said Kamran Bokhari at US think-tank Stratfor. He said Pakistan was 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, 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 mobilized on the border after a December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament by Pakistan-based militants. It is a situation which Al-Qaeda may try to exploit. Defense Secretary Gates told a US Senate hearing last week Al-Qaeda was helping Lashkar-e-Taiba plan attacks in India, “clearly with the idea of provoking a conflict between India and Pakistan that would destabilize Pakistan.” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said war is not an option, and nobody expects a repeat of 2001-2002. “We are not going to see that kind of mobilization again,” said one Indian defense analyst. However, some have raised the possibility of “surgical” strikes against militant camps India says are still operating in Pakistani Kashmir. “The difficulty is in signalling this is not the start of a full war,” he said. 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. While the UN Security Council would be expected to step in quickly to stop any conflict from escalating, it would still leave US plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan in disarray. Immediately after Mumbai, India turned to the United States to put pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Initial hopes in India that Pakistan might act, combined with the return to power in May of Prime Minister Singh in a general election, paved the way for talks between the two countries on the sidelines of international meetings.
