Who's Who In Kashmir

India's defense minister said Tuesday that members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan are just across the border in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

"We have information that the number of terrorists who are on the other side of the border ... (are) people who have fled from Afghanistan, al Qaeda men and Talibanis," Defense Minister George Fernandes said in a television interview.

A Pakistani army spokesman, speaking on the usual condition of anonymity, says there are no al Qaeda men or Taliban in Kashmir. He rejects Fernandes' statement as baseless.

A senior Indian security official in Kashmir says intelligence on the presence of the al Qaeda in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir has been available since the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan last year.

According to ground intelligence, including information from guerrilla training camps inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, there are between 2,500 and 3,000 militants in the region, the intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

A large number of militants are believed to be al Qaeda members, most of them Saudi Arabian citizens.

The South Asian neighbors have fought two wars over Kashmir since they gained independence from Britain in 1947 and both claim the Himalayan region in its entirety.

Fernandes spoke on independent Star News Television, responding to a speech given Monday night by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in which the Pakistani leader said there was no more infiltration of militants across the cease-fire line that separates the Indian and Pakistani portions of Kashmir.

"For Musharraf to say that infiltration is now no more there, first of all it is an admission that it was there and they were responsible for that," Fernandes said. "But what he has said about the present situation is totally wrong."

Pakistan has denied Indian charges that it supports the Islamic extremists with money and arms, but says it give "moral" support for what it calls a freedom struggle, and has repeatedly said that the fighters in Kashmir are Kashmiris.

Even before the Taliban's collapse, Indian soldiers and police had said that in addition to Kashmiris, some of the guerrillas they had killed in the disputed region were Pakistanis, Afghans, Saudis and other nationalities.

A million troops are deployed on both sides of the "Line of Control" frontier in Kashmir, and Pakistan has ratcheted up the pressure with three missile tests in recent days that it said were unrelated to the current dispute. India has blamed Pakistan's spy agency and Pakistan-based militants for two major attacks over the past six months. The Islamabad government and the militants denied involvement.

"Missiles are deployed by both armies," Fernandes said, and troops have been "eyeball to eyeball for the past few months. But to say we are on the brink of war may not be proper."

He added, "Naturally, our options will become fewer and fewer. Which option will finally prevail is something I cannot comment about now."

By Laurinda Keys