NEW YORK, Dec 16: The United States plans to increase pressure on Pakistan to curb the activities of two Mujahideen groups after a suicide attack on the Indian Parliament that killed seven people , said the New York Times quoting American officials.
The paper says that in its efforts to obtain the continued cooperation of Pakistan in the fight against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the Bush administration had refrained from pushing too hard for it to clamp down on the two organizations, Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad, which operate openly in Pakistan and advocate violence to drive India out of Kashmir.
But India's accusation that Lashkar-i-Taiba was behind the dramatic shootout on Thursday and Jaish-i-Muhammad claim of responsibility for a similar attack on the Indian Legislative Assembly in Kashmir that killed 40 people in October has forced a tough re-evaluation by Washington, the paper said.
Pakistan has "told us that they are planning on moving gradually to curb this kind of extremism," a senior State Department official told the Times. "I think what this means is if these groups are indeed carrying out these kinds of attacks, that process will have to be accelerated."
A Western diplomat in Islamabad concurred, saying the Bush administration will push Pakistan to restrain militant groups to try to reduce tensions with India over Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim border region that India considers a state in its union. India has demanded that Pakistan shut down both groups.
The Times noted that Pakistan has long identified Islamic groups fighting against Indian control of Kashmir as freedom fighters and tolerated their activities even in the post-Sept 11 era.
The government has started to crack down on radical religious schools, which provided training grounds for fighters who joined the Taliban, and has begun to purge its powerful intelligence service of pro-Taliban elements in response to American pressure. But Kashmiri Mujahideen groups retain strong backing from elements of the military dictatorship and the public, so the government has been reluctant to restrain them and risk internal problems.
The leader of one such group in an interview with the paper said that his organization was told by government officials to move its headquarters to Azad Kashmir region and lower its profile, but he said nothing was mentioned about stopping its attacks on Indian outposts. "All they told us to do was move our visible means of operation out of the spotlight," said the leader.
Similarly, Lashkar-i-Taiba recently moved its offices out of Islamabad and took down the signs at its huge training compound near Lahore, but foreign intelligence officials said the organization continues to train freedom fighters there. Lashkar-i-Taiba, or Army of the Pure, is led by a former university professor, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who has continued to give fiery public speeches denouncing the American-led coalition's war in Afghanistan and warning President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan not to "sell out" Kashmir the way he sold out the Taliban, the paper said.
The group, the Times noted has taken credit for many attacks on Indian soldiers in Kashmir, but a spokesman said that it was not responsible for the attack on the Indian Parliament, which shook the world's largest democracy. Jaish-i-Muhammad, which means Army of the Prophet Muhammad, also operates openly despite American requests that Pakistan freeze its bank accounts and curtail its activities after the Oct 1 suicide attack in Srinagar in Kashmir.