Pakistan, India assert right to self-defense

The nuclear-armed rivals each touted its military strength on the eve of a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed at easing tensions after terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, last week.

By Laura King and Mark Magnier

8:21 AM PST, December 2, 2008

Reporting from Mumbai, India, and Islamabad, Pakistan -- Both Pakistan and India made pointed references to the right of self-defense today, the eve of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival in India to try to calm tensions in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have deteriorated in the wake of last week's rampage in India's financial capital that killed more than 170 people. The lone surviving gunman, identified by Indian authorities as a Pakistani, has told investigators the assailants were trained by a Pakistani militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

So far, both India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars in the last 60 years, have refrained from any large-scale troop movements along their heavily militarized border. Perhaps mindful of domestic political considerations, however, each side chose to make statements today referring to its own military strength.

"I . . . want to tell the nation not to worry," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a televised address from the nation's capital, Islamabad. "The government of Pakistan, the armed forces of Pakistan, are united and are fully capable of defending the frontiers of Pakistan."

Qureshi's Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee, told the Indian television channel NDTV that while he did not want to discuss military options, "every sovereign country has its right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action as and when it feels necessary."

Mukherjee also suggested it would be "difficult" to move ahead with a 5-year-old peace process, which has yielded only incremental progress, unless Pakistan moved decisively against those behind the attacks.

Pakistan has vehemently denied any government involvement in the attacks, but has been slow to address the allegations that the Mumbai plot involved Pakistani "elements." The new government says it has not yet been provided with hard evidence that a Pakistani-based group was involved.

Qureshi today offered Pakistani assistance in a joint investigation, but provided no details. Pakistan's civilian government, elected less than a year ago, was forced last week to renege on an offer to send the chief of its powerful intelligence agency to India, apparently under pressure from the military and security establishments.

Outside assistance in the inquiry is being provided by the FBI and Scotland Yard.

Pakistan also refrained from making any immediate response to a demand that it hand over about 20 wanted fugitives to India. A government spokeswoman, Sherry Rehman, said today that the request had not yet been formally received, although the list was delivered a day earlier to Pakistan's high commissioner in New Delhi, its senior envoy in India.

"We have to look at it once we formally receive it," Rehman said.

Among those being sought by India was its most-wanted man, underworld figure Dawood Ibrahim, who has allegedly been living in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Also on the list is Masood Azhar, who had been jailed in India but was released in 1999 in a swap for hostages aboard a hijacked Indian Airlines jetliner.

Meanwhile, some Pakistani officials, including opposition politician Nawaz Sharif, raised the possibility of a link between the Mumbai attacks and an outbreak of violence in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. At least 40 people have been killed in ethnic clashes that broke out over the weekend.

The fighting, which appeared to be tapering off today after four days of street battles and gunfights, involved ethnic Pashtuns, the dominant group along the Afghan-Pakistan border, and Muslims who migrated from India at the time of the subcontinent's partition in 1947.

King and Magnier are Times staff writers.