Vol. 72/No. 32      August 18, 2008

Tensions have periodically flared between Pakistan and India, including three wars since the British colonial rulers divided India into the Muslim state of Pakistan and the largely Hindu state of India 61 years ago.

Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged fire July 28, threatening to blow up a 2003 ceasefire agreement. At least one Indian and perhaps three or four Pakistani soldiers were killed in the incident along the disputed Kashmir border, according to the Indian military. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of backing Islamist groups opposing Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. Pakistan says it only provides moral support.

Nearly a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence from India or merger with Pakistan.

U.S. government officials said that communications intercepted between the ISI and a group allied with al-Qaeda indicate that the ISI also provides militias with details about U.S. military operations in Pakistan’s border regions.

Pakistani officials strongly denied the accusation of involvement in the bombing of the Indian embassy. Foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq called it “rubbish” and “baseless.” Pakistan’s military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said it was “malicious propaganda.”

The ISI has long maintained ties with the Taliban and other Islamist militia groups—some as far back as al-Qaeda’s fight against Soviet troops in the 1980s. These militias continue to be useful to Islamabad as a counterweight to the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan and to India’s growing influence in Afghanistan and the region.

In June the Afghan intelligence services accused the ISI of involvement in an April 27 assassination attempt against Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai. The Afghan president threatened in June to send troops into Pakistan in pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaeda militia that strike against U.S.-led NATO troops.

Relations between Washington and its unstable ally in Islamabad in the “global war on terror” have been strained as the U.S. military and its NATO allies in Afghanistan stepped up military operations inside Pakistan. Some U.S. officials are advocating more unilateral U.S. military action, reported the New York Times.

While the Islamist militias are useful to the capitalist rulers in Pakistan against their rivals in Afghanistan and India, their operations inside Pakistan are seen as a threat to stability. Pakistan’s government has attempted to reach peace deals with militias throughout its border regions.

Renewed fighting against pro-Taliban militias in Swat left a May peace agreement there in shreds. Under the deal the government agreed to gradually withdraw its troops from the area and allow the use of Islamic law. In exchange the militias would halt attacks and lay down their arms. The Pakistani military said that 136 people were killed in the week leading up to August 4 in clashes with militias in the mountainous region.  
 
 
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