- India made detailed preparations for war with Pakistan
yesterday, although senior officers said offensive operations would have
to wait for the end of searing summer temperatures and the monsoon rain
which follows.
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- New Delhi placed all paramilitary units along the border
under army control and the coast guard under naval command. The foreign
minister, Jaswant Singh, said this was "standard operating procedure"
when preparing for action.
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- The country's military is planning for conflict in September,
although New Delhi has announced an "exhaustive" diplomatic offensive
to pressure Pakistan into ending support for cross-border attacks against
the disputed state of Kashmir.
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- But with the sub-continent suffering a ferocious heatwave
that has sent temperatures soaring as high as 122F, officers conceded that
an offensive at the moment would be impossible, with temperatures inside
tanks reaching 160F.
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- "There will be war but, in all likelihood, it will
take place after the summer and the monsoon rains," a senior army
officer said, declining to be named. There was no other way the Indian
army could "let off steam and teach Pakistan a lesson", he added.
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- As the two sides traded intensive artillery fire across
the border yesterday for the fourth day in succession Indian officials
maintained New Delhi's hard line, rejecting Pakistani proposals for independent
observers to be deployed along the frontier.
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- "The figures of infiltration [by Islamic militants]
have gone up," said an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nirupama
Rao. "There's no point in seeking to deflect attention by talking
of involving third parties."
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- India's aggressive stance is creating increasing anxiety
in Pakistan. An Islamabad Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan,
appealed for pressure on New Delhi.
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- "We hope the international community will increase
further its efforts considering the hostile postures adopted by India and
convince India to see reason and come to the negotiating table for discussions
and dialogue," he said.
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- But New Delhi has been infuriated by the continuing infiltration
of Islamic militants fighting its rule in the Himalayan state of Jammu
and Kashmir. It accuses Pakistan of providing them with bases, a charge
that Islamabad denies.
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- At least a million men have been mobilised on both sides
of the border since an attack by militants on the Indian parliament five
months ago.
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- America and other powers have been lobbying hard to calm
the crisis, fearing that war could quickly result in a nuclear exchange.
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- Pakistan has responded by calling up army reserves, retired
officers and civil defence units and has emptied government hospital beds
to prepare for casualties. Yesterday the Indian defence minister, George
Fernandez, and senior generals began a two-day survey of the border region
to assess troop and tank mobilisation.
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- Pro-war sentiment is widespread in India. Retired Maj
Gen Afsir Karim, a member of the National Security Council Advisory Board,
said: "We have neither economic nor diplomatic clout against Pakistan
and the only instrument left is the military one."
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- Gen Karim, a Muslim who fought in two of India's three
wars against Pakistan, in 1965 and 1971, added: "There is no point
in restricting our options indefinitely. We need to chalk out a strategy
and strike at a time and place of our choosing."
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- The normally tense relations between the nuclear-armed
neighbours intensified after last week's suicide attack by three gunmen
at an army base near Jammu in which 31 people, including 11 women and 11
children, died.
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- India blamed the attack on a Pakistan-sponsored insurgent
group fighting Kashmir's 13-year civil war. Islamabad has denied the charge.
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- "We will try to exhaust other options first and
if they don't work we will think of war," said the Kashmir chief minister,
Farooq Abdullah.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$s
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