Pakistan's top prosecutor says the trials of six men accused in the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people will start soon, setting the stage for a key test of Pakistan's commitment to cracking down on militants it once nurtured to attack India.

While Sardar Latif Khosa and other officials said the prosecution process was on track, defense lawyers complained they had not been given documents about the case or details of the evidence against the suspects, whom they have yet to meet. India, the United States and other Western countries are closely watching Pakistan's efforts to punish the militant suspects, accused of planning and helping the Nov. 26-28 attacks that also wounded scores and terrorized India's financial center. In the past, Islamabad has failed to punish militants suspected of attacks on targets in its giant eastern neighbor, with which it has fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947. Pakistan's intelligence agencies are known to have funded and trained Islamist militants to use as proxies against the much larger Indian army in the disputed region of Kashmir. The government says it no longer does this, but many Pakistanis remain sympathetic to the militants' aims.

The nuclear-armed countries moved troops toward their joint border in the aftermath of the attacks, chilling ties. The prime ministers of both nations are due to meet later this month on the sidelines of an international summit in Egypt for the first time since the attacks. "It is very important the Pakistan government move further and faster to prosecute those who were associated with (the Mumbai) attacks and punish them," visiting British Foreign Minister David Miliband said Wednesday, adding that ties between the two nations would remain difficult until this was done. Indian security agencies killed nine of the Mumbai attackers and arrested a lone survivor, Ajmal Kasab, whom they said belonged to the Pakistani militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba. He told investigators the militants were trained on Pakistani soil and the attack was planned there.

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