Mumbai Attack Amps Pakistan-India Tensions

Pakistan Warns Nuclear-Armed Neighbor Against Accusing It Of Links To Terrorist Assault

(AP)  Pakistan warned India against accusing of it links to the Mumbai terror attacks Thursday, saying doing so would "destroy all the goodwill" between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

The remarks by Pakistan's defense minister came hours after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said militants based outside his country carried them out.

Singh did not single out Pakistan, which New Delhi has accused of complicity in terror attacks on its soil before, but his remarks are likely to be taken as a sign here that India suspects Pakistani links somewhere in the plot.

A serious deterioration in relations between Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since 1947, would greatly complicate U.S. foreign policy in South Asia as it tries to get Islamabad to focus less on its southern neighbor and more on tackling al Qaeda and Taliban militants along the Afghan border.

In 2001, militants fighting Indian-rule in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir attacked the parliament in New Delhi, helping push the countries to the brink of war a year later.

The attack late Wednesday saw teams of gunmen attack at least 10 sites, including two luxury hotels, a railway station and a Jewish center, in the financial capital of Mumbai. More than 100 people were killed.

In an address to the nation, Prime Minister Singh said the group that carried out the attacks "was based outside the country" and warned its neighbors "that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated."

Pakistan Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar condemned the attack, but said "we should not be blamed like in the past,"

"This will destroy all the goodwill we created together after years of bitterness," he told The Associated Press. "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."

Earlier, Indian navy spokesman Capt. Manohar Nambiar said navy officers had boarded a cargo vessel it suspected of ties to the attacks that had come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan. He later said the ship was not linked in any way to the strikes.

Many analysts said Wednesday's attacks were more likely to have been carried out by indigenous, Indian extremist groups blamed for a series of bombings this year than Pakistani-linked ones.

They also noted that India's government stood to benefit politically for hinting at the involvement of its old rival - rather than admitting some of its own 145 million Muslims had become radicalized.

"It will always want to label this militancy as foreign rather than to accept it has its own problem," said Shaun Gregory, an expert on South Asian terrorism at the University of Bradford in Britain. "That sells much more easily to the Indian public than admitting serious grievances within its Muslims."

Relations between India and Pakistan have improved in recent years, helped by a reduction in the flow of militants into Kashmir, the divided and violence-torn territory at the core of their dispute.

Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, declared over the weekend that India posed no threat to Pakistan and called for the heavily militarized border to be opened for trade.

Earlier, Pakistan's foreign minister said his country would cooperate in any investigation. He too warned against early speculation about the perpetrators.

"Let us not go in for knee-jerk reactions," said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was in India for talks on a slow-moving South Asian peace process.

An Indian media report said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. There was no way to verify that claim.

Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, said he believed the terrorists were from India.

"The earlier generation of terrorist groups in India were mostly linked to Pakistan," he said. "But today we are seeing a dramatic change. They are almost all homegrown groups."

[babooph]

In India,with all those gods & goddesses,are not a sensible nation -I ,like Bush know I am related to a guy named Adam ,created by an invisible man in the sky,from some dirt,4000 years ago.That is why everthing works so well here.

[adadwal]

Indian congress government has yet again proved to be incompetent.pakistan''s isi must have helped the terrorists but our govt itself is to blame for this mess.this year alone,there were a series of explosions throughout our country but no action was taken against the radical muslims in our territory.reason was vote bank appeasing.what we need presently is a strong leadership followed by an equal

[liberalme]

MSN:

WASHINGTON - The United States is sending investigators to India to help unravel who was behind the terrorist attacks that targeted foreigners in the commercial and tourist center of Mumbai.

These idiots couldn''t even catch Bin Laden---they have done nothing with the 800,000 names on the FBI terror watch list and now they''re going to help "unravel" the India attacks? What a joke!

[obamasnutz]

I wonder how long before it find its way to san francisco??

no gitmo..cant hurt them..cant defend ourselves..
these people have a lot to thank a liberal.."please be gentle" because they whine a lot

[gutto786]

These are very sad events. Innocent people wounded and died. Its such a dark day today. I wish who ever is doing this may understand the proper way of protest. This fighting will just lead the world to chaos.
Iam a pakistani. Just an FYI for LMartinK, pakistan has had the nuclear weapons from last 20 years and without the consent of masters of the world and they know how to protect them. So dun worry about the instability in pakistan thats again created by US foriegn policies.Things can go under control if US just listens to pakistan and stop their own foriegn policies when they dont have any idea how to control these people on Pak-Afghanistan border. Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism itself. Pakistan has been given this job of cleaning the dirt for the world and it deserves a little respect for that. Pakistanis are giving sacrifices to save your *****. Your living in peace in US and you dont actually have any idea what feels like being in an area where bomb blasts everyday and people die everyday. Thats what is happening in pakistan. These mujahedeens evolved during US war with Russia in afghanistan. Pakistan is paying the price for no fault of its own. Atleast show some respect to the people who are dying for a mistake US had commit. So please dont just pass rational comments like that without any proofs. I will say just wait for the investigations and see what happens. I dont think pakistan has resources to wage another war on another border specially with india.

[n5004295061p]

Believe me, the attackers are definitely foreign based.Indian PM is absolutely correct in his views.That ''foreign element'' is involved in all previous acts of gruesome destruction in Indian soil, that''s for sure, and the Indian authorities has proved them conclusively.This cowardly act must be punished, not only the attackers but also the ''foreign element''.

[larryhammick]

IMO, the attackers are not from India, but not necessarily from Pakistan. If they snuck ashore from a freighter, using rubber rafts, they could well have come from SE Asia. The key thing is all the weapons, including grenades, with which were somehow supplied. It is critical to expose the funders of Sunni Islamist terrorism. They include rich individuals and corrupt charities, more than they do governments. On the Shi''ite side, they are mostly governments the governments of Iran and Syria and the weapons-heavy private sectors of those countries.