U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Nancy J. Powell

ISLAMABAD, January 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Pakistan, a key supporter of the U.S.-led war on terror, fumed Friday, January 24, over a blunt warning from the United States to end terrorism on its soil and stem rebel incursions into Indian Kashmir.

"We are not sending infiltrators over, we are not sponsoring them, and we have informed the U.S. of this," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We are trying our best to stop infiltration." Asked if those efforts had succeeded, the minister replied: "I don't know."

U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell on Thursday, January 23, said Pakistan had to live up to its promises "to prevent infiltration across the Line of Control and end the use of Pakistan as a platform for terrorism."

The Line of Control (LoC) is a ceasefire line running between the Pakistani and Indian-controlled zones of the Muslim-majority northern Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is claimed in full by both countries.

India accuses Pakistan of training Islamic rebels on its side and sending them over the LoC to carry on a bloody 14-year insurgency.

Powell's remarks echo those of her counterpart in New Delhi, Robert Blackwill, that Washington was pushing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to halt the flow of rebels and "end permanently terrorist infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir."

The comments suggest a fresh bid by Washington to press its war-on-terror ally to block the rebel incursions, undermining claims by Islamabad since June 2002 that it has stemmed the flow and threatening to fuel already simmering anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan.

"She is accusing us. We feel that she is misled," Ahmed said.

‘Outrageous and very unfortunate’

The Islamic party alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which leads the opposition in the federal parliament and heads the North West Frontier Province legislature, slammed Powell's warning as "outrageous and very unfortunate."

"She seems to be talking almost the language of the Indian leadership," said Jamaat-i-Islami party vice president and MMA senate candidate, Professor Khurshid Ahmed.

"The LoC is not an international border, the people of Kashmir living on both sides for the last 55 years have been moving across and can never be stopped," the MMA's Ahmed told AFP.

"The U.S. ambassador is out of tune with the ground situation... That struggle can never be described as terrorism."

Musharraf promised U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage in June 2002 to permanently end the incursions. The pledge brought Pakistan and India back from the brink of a fourth war they had been close to since gunmen attacked India's parliament in December 2001.

New Delhi said the attackers were Pakistan-backed militants, and both sides moved around a million troops to offensive positions on their shared frontier, only withdrawing them in October 2002.

For months India has accused Musharraf of reneging on his promise, saying the flow of militants had resumed after a brief respite.

U.S. cross-border terrorism

In Pakistani Kashmir, anti-India guerrilla group Hizbul Mujahedin accused the U.S. of double standards.

"Why does the U.S. have a different attitude towards the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir, particularly when it has always been over-enthusiastic in implementing the world body's resolutions on Iraq?" said spokesman Salim Hashmi.

Hashmi was referring to UN Security Council resolutions dating back to 1948 which advocate a referendum for Kashmiris to choose rule by Pakistan or India.

He accused the U.S. of "encouraging India to go ahead with its killing spree in Kashmir." Pakistan accuses Indian troops of rape, torture, arbitrary killings and arrests of Kashmiris.

The MMA's Ahmed said the U.S. was guilty of "cross-border terrorism."

"The U.S. is pursuing a policy of international terrorism... If any country has been engaged in cross-border terrorism, unfortunately it is America."