Al-Qaeda trying to spark India-Pakistan war, says Robert Gates
A three-headed "syndicate of terrorist operators" co-ordinated by al-Qaeda is attempting to destabilise the whole of South Asia and trigger a conflict between India and Pakistan, the US has warned.
During a visit to New Delhi, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, praised India's "great restraint and statesmanship" after the 2008 Mumbai massacre but cautioned that "Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks".
He was speaking after meetings in New Delhi with Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, and the country's defence minister AK Antony during the first stop of a two-country regional trip.
The Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people in November 2008, were carried out by the Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has past links to Pakistani intelligence and was named by Mr Gates as one of three organisations in South Asia operating under the "umbrella of al-Qaeda".
He said that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan were attempting "to destabilise not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region by provoking a conflict perhaps between India and Pakistan through some provocative act".
Mr Gates was highlighting "the magnitude of the threat" across South Asia" as a way of encouraging India and Pakistan to co-operate with each other as well as their mutual ally the US.
"It's dangerous to single out any one of these groups and say, 'If we can beat that group, that will solve the problem,' because they are in effect a syndicate of terrorist operators intended to destabilise this entire region," he said.
Successful attacks by any one of the three groups boosted al Qaeda and the others. "A victory for one is a victory for all."
India and Pakistan, however, remain intensely suspicious of each other.
They have fought three wars with each other since they achieved independence in 1947 and previous strikes in India by Kashmir separatists had led to military build-ups along its north-west border with Pakistan.
Talks between the two countries over disputed Kashmir were abandoned after the Mumbai massacre and Mr Gates told Congress last month that al-Qaeda was passing "targeting information" onto Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Mr Gates acknowledged that the conflict in Afghanistan was inflaming the historic tensions between India and Pakistan. "Let's be honest with one another here – there are real suspicions in both India and Pakistan about what the other is doing in Afghanistan."
The Pentagon chief, who also visited the Taj Mahal after being flown there on an Indian military aircraft, is hoping to strengthen military ties with India despite scepticism in New Delhi over the increasing American preoccupation with bolstering Pakistan.
India is the fifth largest development donor to Afghanistan, pledging $1.2 billion in aid for projects that have led to Pakistani accusations that it is setting up a spy network there. Mr Gates paid tribute to the "extraordinary support" from India in Afghanistan but played down suggestions that it should be extended to include direct military aid.
2 comments:
Why is Gates tipping the hand of what al-CIA-duh is designed to do? Don't he and his masters WANT a war between India and Pakistan?
I guess they have other ways to foment a war between the two. Most likely, in the planned WW III Pakistan will join the Soviet-Chinese-Arab alliance, and India will join the pro-Zionist Western alliance.
Who really knows why Gates did what he did... But we must remember that the Zionists don't really care about who is fighting the next war, because they will supply the money to fight on each side in any conflict, and the victors will be them, not the combatants!
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