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| India is on the offensive | | ISI under fire from all sides | |
NEW DELHI, OCT 2
It is war of words, literally, between New Delhi and Islamabad. India's accusations that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency master-minded the serial bomb blasts in July, that killed 186 and injured 800 others, has come as no real surprise. After all, there were elaborate leaks to the press every time a militant was arrested. Every confession made headlines.
Every nut, screw and bolt used in the pressure cooker bombs was front page news. Pakistan has denied ISI's involvement. It appears that the fate of the peace process in the light of these accusations once again hangs in the balance. In the Cuban capital, Havana, the leaders of both countries made an effort to resurrect talks. The only crutch available was the anti-terror mechanism, now in imminent danger of dying before it takes wing.
India's new Foreign Secretary, Shiuv Shankar Menon, has already said that the evidence Mumbai police have uncovered will be the first item on the agenda under the new mechanism. Pakistan is likely to make similar accusations on Indian involvement in Balochistan and a free for all as a prelude to the derailing of the peace process is certain.
This must not be allowed to happen. Cool heads and wiser counsel must prevail to ensure that India and Pakistan have the last word. Not the militants. Five years into a war on terrorism, abiding distrust of Pakistan among allies and neighbours was laid bare in the past few days through a series of accusations against its military secret service. On Saturday (September 30), Indian police said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), along with Lashkar-e-Toiba, branded a terrorist group by the United States, was behind bomb blasts that killed 186 people and wounded hundreds in Mumbai on July 11.
President of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had already spent the latter days of a lengthy overseas trip fending off Afghan and British insinuations that members of his security apparatus were covertly supporting the Taliban insurgency raging in southern Afghanistan. Coming just two weeks after Gen. Musharraf managed to get India to resume a peace process that New Delhi froze after the Mumbai blasts, the timing of the allegation against the ISI is bad, according to one school of thought.
The ISI agency is well-used to being blamed, though the West had been happy to enlist its support in a covert war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s, just as it is now being used in the war on terrorism. Despite becoming a crucial ally of the West, despite making a foreign policy U-turn in 2001 to abandon support for a Taliban government hosting Al Qaida, and despite starting peace talks with India almost three years ago, doubts remain about whether Pakistan's spies are still playing a double game.
Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, pointedly warned of the dangers in a remark last week in the United States that snakes cannot be trained to bite other people. |
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