Militants could start regional war: Zardari

Pakistan President has appealed to India not to punish his country for attacks in Mumbai, saying militants have the power to precipitate a war in the region.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week’s attacks in Mumbai, saying militants have the power to precipitate a war in the region, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Zardari, whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated by Islamist militants last year, warned that provocation by rogue “non-state actors” posed the danger of a return to war between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

“Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?” asked Zardari in an interview with the Financial Times.

“We live in troubled times where non-state actors have taken us to war before, whether it is the case of those who perpetrated (the) 9/11 (attacks on the United States) or contributed to the escalation of the situation in Iraq,” said Zardari.

“Now, events in Mumbai tell us that there are ongoing efforts to carry out copycat attacks by militants. We must all stand together to fight out this menace.”

Analysts say the Mumbai assaults by Islamist militants, which killed nearly 200 people, bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group blamed for previous attacks in India.

Indian officials have said most, perhaps all, of the 10 attackers who held Mumbai hostage with frenzied attacks using assault rifles and grenades came from Pakistan.

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The fallout from the three-day rampage in Mumbai, India’s commercial centre, has threatened to unravel India’s improving ties with Pakistan and prompted the resignation of India’s security minister at the weekend.

Analysts say the United States could get ensnared in tension between New Delhi and Islamabad, and it may prove to be a setback in the war on Islamic radicals on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

New Delhi said on Sunday it was raising security to a “war level” and had no doubt of a Pakistani link to the attacks, which unleashed anger at home over intelligence failures and the delayed response to the violence that paralysed the country’s financial capital.

Officials in Islamabad have warned any escalation would force it to divert troops to the Indian border and away from a US-led anti-militant campaign on the Afghan frontier.

Zardari has vowed to crack down if given proof.

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But security officials in Islamabad said Pakistan would move troops from its western border with Afghanistan, where forces are battling al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as part of the US-led campaign against militancy, to the Indian border if tension escalated.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday he would boost and overhaul the nation’s counter-terrorism capabilities, an announcement which came after Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned over the attacks.