Greetings, and welcome to the World Affairs Board!
The World Affairs Board is the premier forum for the discussion of the pressing geopolitical issues of our time. Topics include military and defense developments, international terrorism, insurgency & COIN doctrine, international security and policing, weapons proliferation, and military technological development.
Our membership includes many from military, defense, academic, and government backgrounds with expert knowledge on a wide range of topics. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not register a World Affairs Board account and join our community today?
notice_1006_html
Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
India Says Five Soldiers Killed in Attack on Pakistan Border
This means that even a week of hostilities would be optimistic. Moment the rumbling starts the Americans & Russians lean on India and the Americans & Chinese lean on Pakistan.
DE, I seriously have a question. Why did you wait for me to tell you the obvious? You have been following me for years. This should have been obvious.
Yes, Hitesh, aka Blademaster, it should have been obvious to you as well.
Pakistan accuses India of killing civilian in Kashmir
MUZZAFFARABAD: Pakistan accused India on Monday of killing a civilian with “unprovoked firing” in Kashmir in the latest in a series of recent clashes in the disputed Himalayan region.
Tensions have flared again in the heavily militarised Kashmir valley with the nuclear-armed neighbours accusing each other of cross-border firing.
The latest incident took place when “Indian troops resorted to unprovoked firing in the wee hours Monday” in three areas along the de facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC), a military official said.
“Pakistani troops effectively responded to Indian firing,” he said, adding that one civilian was killed “due to unprovoked Indian shelling”.
The prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, led a 400-strong protest march to the UN observer mission in Muzaffarabad to demand action to restore peace.
“It is responsibility of the UN observer mission to keep peace in Kashmir,” he told protesters.
“They should fulfil their responsibility by playing a role to stop shelling from India and restore calm in the valley.”
Indian Defence Minister A K Antony on Thursday hinted at stronger military action along the LoC after Delhi accused Pakistan’s army of involvement in a deadly overnight ambush that killed five Indian soldiers last Monday.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to ease tensions with India by urging both sides to work swiftly to shore up a 10-year ceasefire threatened by the recent attacks.
On Sunday, Pakistan accused India of firing on border posts in Kashmir and neighbouring Punjab province.
The picturesque Himalayan territory of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan by the UN-monitored LoC, but is claimed in full by both countries.
A deadly flare-up along the LoC in January brought peace talks to a halt.
They had only just resumed after a three-year hiatus sparked by the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people. India blamed Pakistani militants for the attack.
More than a dozen armed groups have been fighting Indian forces since 1989, demanding independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir
Farce of accusations over border skirmishes continues
SRINAGAR: India and Pakistan have again accused each other of firing across the Line of Control (LoC), the latest development in a series of allegations of cross-border attacks made by both sides.
An Indian army commander on Tuesday accused Pakistani troops of firing intermittently through the night on the Mendhar sector of the border, 180 kilometres southwest of Srinagar, the main city in Indian-administered Kashmir.
An AFP report quoted the Indian army as saying in a statement that Pakistani soldiers started firing at Indian posts in Mendhar district late on Monday and about an hour later in the Balakot area of Poonch sector, with the firing continuing until about 6am Tuesday.
“Pakistani soldiers used small arms, machine guns and mortars. We gave a calibrated response,” an army officer said separately, on condition of anonymity.
Moreover, the website of Indian newspaper The Hindu quoted, in a Press Trust of India report, an Indian Border Security Force (BSF) official as anonymously saying that “there was firing by Pakistani Rangers on Narianpur Border Out Post (BoP) in Ramgarh forward area in Samba district around 0730 hours”.
The official further claimed that firing came from Ashraf post of Pakistan, according to the report.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani military official accused Indian troops of firing late Monday at Pakistani military posts, according to an AP report. This official too requested anonymity.
Tensions have flared in the Kashmir valley since the ambush and killing last week of five Indian soldiers in the Poonch sector, which India blamed on Pakistani soldiers.
The ambush sparked a series of cross-border skirmishes which the rival neighbours blamed on one another.
Pakistan accused India of killing a civilian during firing on Monday and summoned its envoy in Islamabad to register a protest.
Last week's ambush was the deadliest such incident along the LoC since the two countries agreed to a ceasefire in 2003. Pakistan denied its soldiers were involved in the attack.
Indian Defence Minister A K Antony last week hinted at stronger military action along the LoC in the wake of the ambush.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been vocal in his desire for better relations with India since his election in May, but the recent flare-ups have tested the resolve for peace on both sides.
The picturesque Himalayan territory is divided between India and Pakistan by the UN-monitored LoC, but both countries claim it in full.
A dozen militant groups have also been fighting Indian forces since 1989 for the independence of the disputed territory or for its merger with Pakistan.
Although violence has abated during the last decade, the fighting has left tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, dead.
As Afghanistan endgame looms, a deadly edge to India-Pakistan rivalry.
Are we expecting things to escalate after the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan?
Pakistan-based militants are preparing to take on India across the subcontinent once Western troops leave Afghanistan next year, several sources say, raising the risk of a dramatic spike in tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.
Intelligence sources in India believe that a botched suicide bombing of an Indian consulate in Afghanistan, which was followed within days last week by a lethal cross-border ambush on Indian soldiers in disputed Kashmir, suggest that the new campaign by Islamic militants may already be underway.
Members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant outfit in Pakistan, the group blamed for the 2008 commando-style raid on Mumbai that killed 166 people, told Reuters they were preparing to take the fight to India once again, this time across the region.
And a U.S. counter-terrorism official, referring to the attack in Afghanistan, said "LeT has long pursued Indian targets, so it would be natural for the group to plot against them in its own backyard".
Given the quiet backing - or at least blind eye - that many militant groups enjoy from Pakistan's shadowy intelligence services, tensions from a new militant campaign are bound to spill over. Adding to the volatility, the two nations' armies are trading mortar and gunfire across the heavily militarized frontier that divides Kashmir, and accusing each other of killing troops.
Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan have fought three wars since independence in 1947 and came close to a fourth in 1999. The tension now brewing may not escalate into open hostilities, but it could thwart efforts to forge a lasting peace and open trade between two countries that make up a quarter of the world's population.
"With the Americans leaving Afghanistan, the restraint on the Pakistani security/jihadi establishment is going too," said a former top official at India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the external intelligence arm.
"We are concerned about 2014 in either scenario. If the jihadis (Islamist militants) claim success in Afghanistan, they could turn their attention to us. Equally, if they fail, they will attack in wrath."
But Pakistan, which has a border with India to the east and with Afghanistan to the west, has concerns of its own. It sees India's expansive diplomacy in Afghanistan as a ploy to disrupt it from the rear as it battles its own deadly Islamist militancy and separatist forces. Vying for influence in a post-2014 Afghanistan, it worries about India's assistance to the Afghan army, heightening a sense of encirclement.
"I'm shocked by these allegations. Pakistan has its own insurgency to deal with. It has no appetite for confrontations abroad," said a Pakistani foreign ministry official referring to the Indian charges of stirring trouble in Afghanistan and on the Kashmir border.
"If anything, we are looking at our mistakes from the past very critically. These accusations are baseless. India needs to act with more maturity and avoid this sort of propaganda."
Both U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry spoke during visits to India recently of the need for New Delhi and Islamabad to resume their stalled peace process as the region heads into a period of uncertainty.
FULL-SCALE JIHAD
At the core of that uncertainty is the pullback of militants from Afghanistan as U.S. forces head home.
Hafiz Sayeed, founder of the LeT, has left no doubt that India's side of Kashmir will become a target, telling an Indian weekly recently: "Full-scale armed Jihad (holy war) will begin soon in Kashmir after American forces withdraw from Afghanistan."
The retreat of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 brought a wave of guerrillas into Kashmir to fight India's rule there.
This time the additional risk will be the rivalry between India and Pakistan over Afghanistan itself, one that threatens to become as toxic as the 60-year dispute in Kashmir. The LeT has said it is fighting Indian forces in Afghanistan as well.
A senior LeT source in Pakistan told Reuters: "It is correct that the LeT cooperates with the Afghan Taliban (insurgents) when there is a question of attacking Indian interests."
Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated last week after five Indian soldiers were killed close to the de facto border in Kashmir. India says Pakistani special forces joined militants to ambush a night patrol, a charge Pakistan denies.
Just days earlier, three men drove an explosives-laden car towards India's consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan. The blast missed its target and killed nine civilians, six of them young Islamic scholars in a mosque.
It is too early to say conclusively who was behind these and other attacks, but Indian and Afghan officials see in them the handiwork of the LeT and its allies. Such groups have doubled their attempts to cross into Indian-controlled Kashmir this year, according to Indian defense ministry statistics.
The result has been the first increase in Kashmir militant violence since a 2003 ceasefire on the border, which led to a decline in attacks, partly because Pakistan and the jihadi groups were preoccupied with Afghanistan during this time.
In the first eight months of this year, 103 casualties in militant-related violence were recorded in Indian Kashmir, compared to 57 in the same period of 2012, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a think tank.
$10 MILLION BOUNTY
LeT was founded in 1990 in eastern Afghanistan by Sayeed, a Pakistani Islamic scholar whom India accuses of masterminding the rampage in Mumbai. The United States placed a $10 million bounty on his head for his alleged role in the attack, but he remains a free man in Pakistan, where he preached to thousands last week.
Although the group has global ambitions, LeT's primary aim is to end India's rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir. India and Pakistan each control a part of the heavily militarized land of lakes and orchards once known as "paradise on earth" and both assert claims over the whole Himalayan territory.
LeT has been working this year with several other Islamist outfits to train and push more Pakistani militants over the heavily guarded border into India's side, a veteran LeT fighter told Reuters in Pakistan.
"Jihad is being stimulated and various militant outfits are cooperating with each other under the platform of the United Jihad Council," said the veteran, referring to an umbrella body.
Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, came to power in May vowing to improve ties with India and - until last week's flare-up along the Kashmir border - the two sides looked set to resume talks. Their prime ministers were planning to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York next month.
The trouble is, says a retired senior Pakistani diplomat, there are "spoilers" on both sides who are not interested in seeing a rapprochement. In Pakistan, these include the militant groups, which he said operate independently.
"They don't seem to be able to control other non-government actors like the LeT. So that's the biggest worry," he said.
The Pakistan military's refusal to dismantle groups such as LeT infuriates New Delhi and fuels hawkish demands for the kind of tough action that would risk escalation.
The senior LeT source in Pakistan denied the group was involved in the failed consulate strike in Afghanistan, but officials in New Delhi - citing intelligence intercepts - said they had been forewarned about LeT-trained hit squads plotting the attack.
Pakistan, whose intelligence agency is regularly accused of quietly supporting Afghan Taliban insurgents, says India's aid and missions are cover for carrying out covert operations there.
"Jalalabad was a message from the ISI in a long line of such messages," said an Indian intelligence official, referring to Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
TIGHT SECURITY
Further east, on the line dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India, ceasefire violations are up 80 percent compared to last year, according to India. On Friday night, the two armies exchanged 7,000 rounds of mortar and gunfire, according to Indian media.
Anti-Indian sentiment in Kashmir provides fertile ground for groups seeking to revive the militancy that roiled the region through the 1990s, but New Delhi has two things in its favor.
First, despite the uptick, violence in the state is still close to the record low it reached last year. Second, the Indian army has to a large extent sealed the rugged, fenced and land-mined border that divides Kashmir, leaving militants with a critically small number of cadres and weapons.
"We cannot send jihadists into India in big numbers like in the past because of tight security at the Indian side," the LeT source in Pakistan said.
Speaking on the lawn of his official bungalow in the restive Indian town of Baramulla, J.P. Singh, the police chief for northern border operations, told Reuters the army and police had stopped most attempted militant crossings this year.
Still, India is preparing for an influx.
"(Pakistan's) agents and their protégés, the militants, are getting disengaged from the Afghan border and they have nowhere else to keep them and engage them, other than to push them to Kashmir," Singh said. "Their presence inside Pakistan is dangerous for the internal security of Pakistan."
Are we expecting things to escalate after the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan?
That's expected... This summer has already seen a huge spike in infiltration attempts from across the LoC; along with the PA being more trigger friendly than usual. As the Afghan conflict cools down, PA will start diverting their excess militants from the Afghan theatre and attempt to push them into Kashmir.
Are we expecting things to escalate after the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan?
Things may escalate in Afghanistan, but not in Indian Kashmir.
Reasons for that are in the nature of the stakeholders. I'll open a thread specific to this issue and start a debate on it.
JAMMU: Violating the ceasefire for the ninth time in the past four days, Pakistani troops targeted 16 Indian forward posts and civilian areas along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir resulting in heavy exchanges.
"Pakistani troops fired on Indian posts along the LoC in Hamirpur-Balakote and Mendhar forward areas in Poonch district last night" defence spokesman SN Acharya said on Wednesday.
The troops from across the border fired small arms and automatic weapons besides mortar and RPGs from 2100 hours hours last night, the spokesman said.
Indian troops guarding the borderline fired back resulting in heavy exchanges till 2215 hours, Acharya said, adding there was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing from Pakistan.
The firing continued intermittently today. Pakistan targeted 16 Indian forward posts in Hamirpur, Balakote and Mankote forward areas in Poonch throughout the night. Pakistan fired at six posts each in Balakote and Hamirpur areas and four in Mankote belt.
Eight posts manned by the troops of 605 Mujahid Regiment troops of Pakistan Army, were involved in the firing on Indian posts.
This is the ninth ceasefire violation by Pakistan in the past four days, security official said.
Pakistani Rangers had yesterday violated the ceasefire and fired at Narianpur Border Out Post (BoP) in Ramgarh forward area in Samba district.
Pakistani troops had fired at Indian posts along LoC in Hamirpur and Balakote forward areas in Mendhar sub-sector of Poonch district at 9.20 PM last night. The firing continued till 6 AM today, Defence Spokesman S N Acharya said.
Pakistani Rangers had also fired small arms on Kothay Border Out Post along IB in Samba district at 1930 hours yesterday, a BSF officer said.
Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!
SRINAGAR: Army on Wednesday foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, killing two militants.
"Alert troops noticed movement of heavily armed militants close to the Line of Control in Keran Sector of Kupwara at around 3.00am. The militants were challenged, triggering a gun battle," a defence spokesman said.
He said two infiltrators were killed in the exchange of fire between the two sides.
"The operation was in progress when last reports were received," he said.
Infiltration attempts from across the LoC have been on the rise since the beginning of July and so far over 16 militants have been eliminated in operations along the ceasefire line in the past six weeks.
Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!
Tweet
Comment