Pakistan Tries To Avoid New Battlefront
This story was written by CBS News' Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has called a meeting of leaders from all of the country's main political parties to discuss a unified Pakistani response to the terror attacks in Mumbai.
The conference will take place in Islamabad as Pakistan's leaders try to avoid embroiling their relatively new government in a reinvigorated confrontation with India along the two nuclear-armed countries' shared border.
Indian security officials have said the one gunman arrested in the 60-hour siege has admitted to membership in a Pakistan-based terrorist group and is of Pakistani nationality.
For Pakistan, the confrontation threatens to open another battle front as the country's security forces continue to wage an ongoing fight against al Qaeda and Taliban militants in the mountains along their border to the west, with Afghanistan.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, in a passionate appeal to India on Monday, called for a reduction of tensions so that his government is able to continue focusing on the battle with the militants.
"The architects of this calamity in Mumbai have managed to raise a threat on our other border. As we have these people (militants) on the run along our western border, our attention is being diverted at this critical time," Zardari said in an interview published in the Financial Times.
A top Indian police official said over the weekend that the only suspect to have been captured in the attack admitted to being a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group once supported by Pakistan's military intelligence service.
Zardari disputed that charge in the interview, but hinted that even if L-e-T is behind the attack, that is one of the groups his forces are fighting.
"Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?"
Western diplomats based in Islamabad tell CBS News Zardari's offer of complete support to India as it investigates the Mumbai carnage was a significant step forward by Pakistan to change the underlying tenor of its relationship with its much larger adversary.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars and numerous skirmishes during their 61 year history as independent states - largely driven by tension over the division of the mountainous border state of Kashmir.
On Monday, a senior Western diplomat based in Islamabad told CBS News fears of an Indo-Pakistan encounter were so great that the U.S. had become drawn in to try and manage the conflict and prevent it from getting out of control.
"After Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan, the India-Pakistan situation poses the greatest challenge," said the diplomat, who spoke to CBS on condition of anonymity.
President Bush is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to India later this week to work with New Delhi in the wake of the attacks.