World

U.S. Links Pakistan To Hijack

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 26, 2000 / 4:46 AM EST / CBS

The United States has credible evidence that the men who hijacked an Indian airliner last month were from a group which receives some support from the Pakistani government, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

The United States has asked Pakistan to crack down on the group, the Harkat ul-Mujahideen, and the Pakistanis say they are considering the request, the U.S. official said.

"There is some credible evidence that the hijacking was carried out by the Harkat ul-Mujahideen," the official said.

But President Clinton said that Washington did not believe that Pakistan was culpable in the incident.

"We do not have evidence that the Pakistani government was in any way involved in that hijacking," Mr. Clinton told reporters at the White House.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart went further: "We have no evidence that the government of Pakistan had foreknowledge of, supported or helped carry out the hijacking."

State Department spokesman James Rubin said that Islamabad supported groups known as Kashmiri nationalists. "We have long said that the government of Pakistan does provide general support to a number of groups operating in Kashmir, including the Harkat ul-Mujahideen," he added.

Harkat ul-Mujahideen is the new name for Harkat ul-Ansar, a radical Kashmiri nationalist group that was put on the State Department's list of terrorist groups in 1997. After it appeared on the list, the group changed its name.

A spokesman for Pakistan's embassy in Washington said Islamabad denied any link to hijacking.

"The government of Pakistan today denounced the suggestion that it had anything to do with the hijacking, much less that it supported any organization that had anything to do with the hijacking," the spokesman said.

Rubin declined to comment on a New York Times report quoting U.S. officials as saying Pakistan might end up on Washington's separate list of what it calls "state sponsors of terrorism." Listed countries can suffer sanctions.

India says it has evidence that the Pakistani government helped in the Indian Airlines hijacking, which ended on Dec. 31 when the hijackers freed 155 hostages in exchange for India's release of three members of Harkat ul-Mujahideen.

Apart from the hijacking and political violence, the United States is concerned by the close ties between Pakistan and the Taleban rulers of Afghanistan. It wants to see a quick return to democratic rule in Pakistan, where Gen. Pervez Musharraf took power in a military coup in October.

In talks with Musharraf, U.S. officials asked him to cut off support for Harkat ul-Mujahideen and other militant groups active in the campaign against Indian rule in mainly Moslem Kashmir.

"They said they are going to take into consideration our request and get back to us," the U.S. official said. "But there were no promises," he added.

The New York Times said Musharraf left the impression tat no action would be taken soon, an attitude it described as a rebuff to the U.S. request.

Pakistani commentators have warned successive governments that action against the militants could lead to a backlash by radical Moslem groups and to domestic unrest.