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Editor: India Poised for "Limited War" Against Pakistan
NEW DELHI, Dec. 27 (IslamOnline) - The editor-in-chief of a New Delhi daily newspaper,
Melli Gazette, Zafr ul-Islam Khan, claimed Thursday that India has already taken an undeclared decision to launch a limited war against Pakistan to boost the popularity of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before elections in Uttar Pradesh in January or early February 2002.
In a statement to IslamOnline Thursday, Khan said, "the war decision has already been taken, it only remains to determine the time," citing senior sources of the Indian government he refused to name.
"I think India will direct its strikes to Pakistani-administered Kashmir first, aiming to destroy positions of Kashmiri resistance groups - some of which are accused by India of staging the attacks on the Indian Parliament two weeks ago, groups like Lashkar I-taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Tameer Alumma.
"It will then launch a limited war on Pakistan. Afterwards, both the United States and the United Nations will interfere to prevent an all-out war and the use of nuclear weapons," said Khan.
He also said the decision for war against Pakistan was taken in an undeclared form by most of the BJP members, and is supported by the Indian Prime Minister, and the Defense and Interior Ministers.
The Indian analyst hinted that the most important question is whether the war will be limited to Indian-occupied Pakistani-Kashmir, or if the conflict will spread to the Punjab province.
Khan also said that India has already taken internal and external steps to pressure Pakistan. Steps taken internally include recalling the Indian ambassador to Pakistan, and canceling the "Water Agreement" between the two countries.
This agreement organizes Pakistan's attainment of water from India. Outside its borders, India has carried out an international diplomatic campaign to boost support for the decision to declare war on Pakistan.
Khan pointed out that history was repeating itself, as India was acting in the same manner as Indira Ghandi did in 1971 before the war with Pakistan, when it carried out a diplomatic campaign to gain international support for its declaration of war on Pakistan. India finally declared war on Pakistan three months after the diplomatic campaign in 1971.
The Indian analyst said he believed that war would be declared towards the end of January, or early February 2002. He added that it would most probably be before elections that will be carried out in Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, on February 14, 2002.
Khan said the elections in this state are extremely important to the ruling BJP because if it loses in Uttar Pradesh, the central government will fall.
He pointed out that the BJP's popularity has plunged lately, especially after the attack on the Indian Parliament two weeks ago. For this reason, the BJP is trying to save its party from losing by changing public opinion, as merely declaring war on Pakistan always finds support among Indians.
He added that any BJP loss in the Uttar Pradesh elections would reflect on party coalitions, as the Indian government is made up of 23 parties, the largest being the BJP.
The Indian Minister of Defense, George Fernandes, confirmed that, "the deployment of forces on the Indian-Pakistani border will end in two or three days."
In a statement to the Indian press agency, Press Trust, on Thursday, Fernandes - who has just returned from an inspection tour of the borders between the two countries in Kashmir- described the situation as "dangerous", pointing out the importance of giving time for the diplomatic efforts before thinking of any other steps.
Both India and Pakistan have massed troops and armored vehicles on their borders during the crisis that arose after the attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi two weeks ago.
India claims the attack was carried out by Pakistani-based groups Lashkar i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, and also accuses Pakistani army intelligence of planning the attacks.
Meanwhile, sources in the U.S. government claimed Wednesday that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell cut his Christmas vacation short to contact both India and Pakistan urging them to ease tensions between one another.
Philip Reeker, U.S. Secretary of State deputy spokesman, said Powell made two phone calls to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and two calls to Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Shingh, as well as Britain's Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, and the Pakistani and Russian Foreign Ministers, Abdul Sattar Aziz and Igor Ivanov.
Reeker said that it was important to ease tensions between India and Pakistan "because the conflict between the two countries can never lead to any positive result to either side."
A top official in the U.S. Foreign Ministry said that Powell's phone calls will be repeated and that "we are following the situation very closely."
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