Privately, however, officials in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) felt somewhat vindicated that the US action targeting the international terrorist Osama Bin Laden, had shown up his linkages with the Pakistan-sponsored fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The US strikes in the Afghan cities of Khost and Jalalabad were ``not an unwelcome development'' government sources said, but they also argued that India could not publicly approve of unilateral air strikes in a sovereign country.

In fact, once again the MEA seemed divided on the public position it should take on the US strikes: according to one view, India should exploit to the hilt the opportunity offered by the US, which not only exposed the Taliban and its sponsors like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but also showed to the world that terrorists in Kashmir were trained in camps in these countries.

The view that won out, however, was to take a much more ``balanced'' position of the situation ``and let it play itself out over the next couple of days.'' As a result, the official spokesman of the MEA told journalists that ``we have seen American statements that the US air strikes... were directed against terrorist targets. We await the full facts about this unilateral action.''

The spokesman went on to add: ``India has itself been the victim of state-sponsored, cross-border terrorism in its most heinous form. We have, on numerous occasions, drawn the world's attention to the presence of training camps in our immediate neighbourhood, where terrorists are equipped and prepared for carrying out subversive activities in India, in particular in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Such terrorist training facilities have continued to function openly and in an unimpeded manner in Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and present-day Afghanistan.''

Privately, the sources pointed out the ``significance'' of Khost and Jalalabad as US targets: that a number of militants and mercenaries arrested in Jammu & Kashmir, especially the Harkat ul-Ansar -- an outfit banned by the US government -- had identified these two cities as the ones where they received training.

One of the reasons why New Delhi has limited itself to indirect approval of the US action is the fact that the air strikes took place without the permission of these sovereign countries.

This factor is also likely to prevent India from taking a more forthright position at the Non-Aligned Summit in Durban in ten days time.

The instinct for the low-profile means that New Delhi will limit itself to sending ministry officials for discussions with key interlocutors like Russia and Iran and those Central Asian nations with whom Afghanistan shares a border.

Joint secretary in the ministry Vivek Katju has been in Teheran last week and is currently in Moscow. Another joint secretary Dinkar Srivastava has just left for Teheran, which is soon to take over the chair of the political committee of NAM. A summit of foreign and defence ministers from Russia and four Central Asian states over the next couple of days will be watched closely from New Delhi.