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India's Wondering, 'If the U.S. Can Bomb Pakistan, Why Can't We?'

U.S. Moves To Contain Fallout from Mumbai Attack
By JIM MANNION, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 3 Dec 16:04 EST (21:04 GMT)


WASHINGTON - Senior U.S. officials are moving swiftly to try to keep the fallout from the Mumbai terror attacks from further unraveling security in an unstable, nuclear armed South Asia, officials and analysts said.

U.S. officials have praised India for showing restraint in the face of the attacks, which Indian and U.S. intelligence have linked to a Pakistani-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

But they are worried about the repercussions for U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, which relies on Pakistani support, as well as for the region's stability as a whole if India retaliates, officials and analysts said.

"I think it's important for there to be restraint on both sides, but it's also important to find out who was responsible," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters Dec 2.

"And I think what we would like to see is both countries work together to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meanwhile converged on the region for meetings in both countries.

The stakes for the United States in defusing a confrontation between the two countries, which have gone to war against each other three times since partition in 1947, are huge.

Washington has long been trying to persuade the Pakistani military to crack down on Al-Qaeda and other militants in safe havens along the Afghan border and to work more closely with U.S. and Afghan forces on the other side of the frontier.

To be effective over the long-term and to combat a growing internal extremist threat, the U.S. military believes its Pakistani counterparts need to shift to counter-insurgency from a near total focus on a conventional defense against India.

But with the Mumbai attacks, tensions and distrust between the two are soaring again, shattering some modest recent gains in Indian-Pakistani talks over the status of Kashmir.

"That was exactly the terrorist intent - to destroy them, or to appreciably undermine them," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University.

"This was an effort to deepen the cleavage between India and Pakistan, to empower more extremist and nationalist elements in both countries, and indeed I think to provoke India to engage in some act of retaliation," he said.

The U.S. military fears that the Pakistani military may now pull forces away from the Afghan border areas to the border with India, leaving insurgent groups to flourish unchecked as happened after a Lashkar-e-Taiba attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

"That is what is being looked at right now. Will there be repercussions? Hasn't been any yet but this was a very significant incident," a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The official said the Pakistanis moved some aircraft and air defense units to the Indian border area but there have been no other overt troop movements by either side.

"They are not surging forces toward the Hindu Kush or the Kashmir region, or the historic hotspots if you will," he said.

"Very much at this point folks are still trying to figure out what happened, who was responsible, who was behind it," the official said.

The U.S. counter-terrorism official said there were "solid indications" that the gunmen who carried out the attacks in Mumbai belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Meeting with Rice in New Delhi, India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said there was "no doubt" that the militants had come from and were coordinated from Pakistan.

Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency helped found the group in the late 1980s and used it as a surrogate in its struggle with India, experts say.

U.S. officials say there is no evidence at this point linking the intelligence service to the latest operation.

"But there are a lot of questions being asked right now," the military official said.

Hoffman noted that the Mumbai attackers targeted a Jewish community center and reportedly sought out Americans and Britons to kill when they stormed luxury hotels.

"In recent years LeT has become a stalking horse for al-Qaeda, bought into Al-Qaeda's global jihadi vision and this attack was clearly part of that," he said.

If the group's involvement is established and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to act against them, then the risk of Indian retaliation will grow, analysts say.

"I suspect the Indians will think very carefully, weigh the costs and benefits of at the very least limited strikes against Lashkar facilities," said Seth Jones, an expert at the Rand Corporation.

"And then of course, we'll be in a very different situation," he said.


U.S. Moves To Contain Fallout from Mumbai Attack - Defense News
 
For all those guys who want to see live action on TV in their living room, nothing (War) is going to happen, we will have to contend with daily sops. :cry:
 
Anand Babu i would watch some old Indian movie rather then watching Indian news channel those days. Indian channel need some strict advice from interior ministry ?...
 
i thought obama is very peaceful, and he has many pakistani friends, and he has an islamic BG, anyways, i dont know??:undecided:
Obama has african tribal blood anyway ,while ago his grandpa used to wore short with lance in the hand....lolzzz..
 
Anand Babu i would watch some old Indian movie rather then watching Indian news channel those days. Indian channel need some strict advice from interior ministry ?...

They have got good entertainment value. Even my wife has stopped watching daily sops. She is watching news channels now a days. :lol:
 
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States believes that India's air force began preliminary preparations for a possible attack against Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of the recent massacre in Mumbai, CNN has learned.
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One U.S. official said India's air force "went on alert" following the attacks in Mumbai.

Three Pentagon officials have individually confirmed to CNN that the United States has information indicating that India began to prepare air force personnel for a possible mission.

The officials offered very few details, but one said India's air force "went on alert." This is the first publicly known indication that perhaps the two nuclear powers were closer to conflict in the days after the Mumbai attacks than previously acknowledged.

A second official said the United States concluded these preliminary preparations would have put India quickly in the position to launch airstrikes against suspected terrorist camps and targets inside Pakistan. During these preparations, a number of senior U.S. officials were urging India to exercise restraint -- which apparently it did.

An Indian Air Force official had no comment.

Air Commodore Homayoon Ziqar, a spokesman for the Pakistan Air Force, had no comment when asked if India had prepared for air strikes against Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks.

Ziqar said Pakistan is not on heightened alert at the moment. "Everything is normal," he said.

Another source in the Pakistan Air Force also said the air force is not on heightened alert but added, "We are always ready, on weekends, on holidays, no matter what the circumstances."

Since the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani security forces raided a camp near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, according to military sources. It was the first sign of government action against Lashkar-e-Tayyiba -- the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group India says was behind the killings of more than 160 people in Mumbai -- since the attacks. Watch Miss Pakistan talk about the Mumbai attacks »

Also, Pakistani authorities have banned a charity linked to last month's Mumbai attacks and placed its leader under house arrest. The move came after the U.N. Security Council designated the charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a terror organization because of its links to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.

Indian police say the only surviving suspect, identified by Indian authorities as 21-year-old Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, is from Pakistan's Punjab province and the nine other alleged attackers were also from Pakistan. Pakistani officials have denied that assertion, blaming instead "stateless actors."

Until now, the Bush Administration has publicly said it saw no signs of military movement by India and no indication that the Indian government was preparing any type of retaliation.


The Pentagon officials broadly described the activity as checking on the status of crews, fighter jets and weapons that were available. The extent of the reported preparation was not immediately known.

Also, one of the Pentagon officials confirmed that the United States has intelligence indicating a single Indian aircraft violated Pakistani airspace twice on Saturday. The United States believes the incursion was inadvertent, the official said, adding that there is no information to indicate it was planned.
 
we dont have a china defence system we got the US ones so keep dreaming we are going to nuke you and Isreal seriously the world will be a much better place lets hope all Muslims Unite so we can be "1" and rule the world

So you plan to nuke the world and Israel and hope only muslims survive ?

Pity you ? It will take just 20 minutes for the response and we can forget about you but anyway I know people like you are on the way out of Pakistan so you sit safely in Saudi raving and ranting.

Have you thought of the consequences if the US GPS in your nuke missile misses / gets diverted to Saudi.

Regards
 
About chinese weapons...Pakistan when get the chinese weapon they always re evaluate for any malfunction. Even any new chinese plane arrives, PAF strip apart the whole plane and re assemble with new alterations and modifications. Thing they only they don't touch is engine and rest yes...
 

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