| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan PM says to have rejected Britain's request to question suspects |
| 2008-12-15 |
| ISLAMABAD, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Monday that he has rejected a request from his British counterpart Gordon Brown to allow British police to question arrested suspects related to Mumbai attacks. Speaking before a general debate on Mumbai attacks, Gilani toldthe parliament that if there were any proofs, these suspects will be prosecuted under the law of Pakistan. "The British Prime Minister asked me to allow British police to have access to the Pakistanis. But I turned down the request," said Gilani. Brown offered Pakistan and India help to fight terrorism on Sunday during a whirlwind visit to the region aimed to ease tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors after the Mumbai terror attacks, which killed more than 170. During the talks with leaders of the two countries, Brown had asked them to allow British police to question suspects arrested over the terrorist attacks, reports said. Pakistan-India tensions are mounting as the Indian side accused Pakistan-based militant groups of involvement in the terrorist attack in India's financial center. Under pressure from India and the United States, Pakistan has intensified clampdown on the suspected groups and arrested some leaders from the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks. Pakistan said Saturday that Indian fighter jets had violated its airspace twice, causing unrest for both countries. However, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said later that Indian planes had intruded into Pakistan airspace because of a technical mistake. "We have to focus on our problems and we don't want to go into war," the Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Gilani as saying. "But if the war is thrust on us, we will stand united like a respectful nation," Gilani said. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #4 Guess this is a good a time as any to give the Indians the F-16 shut off codes. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-12-15 21:39 |
| #3 Back from the brink As Parliament debated the issue, indications from South Block were that India might move to cancel the dialogue process, while holding out the threat of surgical strikes on terror camps. In fact, a quick assessment made in the war room in South Block revealed that most targets were within India's artillery (45km) or Prithvi (250km) range. "We can inflict punishment without crossing the border or LoC," said an Army officer. NightWatch An Indian 24 hour news channel affiliated with CNN broadcast the following report from an unidentified source. “Any Indian decision to carry out a strike on terror targets inside Pakistan will be based on the Cold Start doctrine in place since 2004. The Cold Start doctrine followed the Operation Parakram experience when India took as long as a month to mobilise its troops. The new doctrine will enable the Armed Forces to mobilise for a ground or air strike within hours. Integrated battle groups, comprising elements of the army including infantry, armour and artillery -- and working in tandem with the Air Force -- will carry out an operation against clearly defined targets in Pakistan. These could be terror training camps or launch pads to infiltrate terrorists into India. It could also target elements of the Pakistani army that may try to defend the terrorists. The doctrine talks about eight rapidly-deployable "integrated battle groups," drawn from the Navy and the Indian Air Force. These groups would be trained to make swift and hard inroads into the enemy territory. The strikes should be "limited" and "calibrated" to ensure nuclear weapons do not come into play in any war scenario.” The report is a reminder that after the 2002 crises, India adopted a new strategic doctrine. It is built around maintaining a core attack force in all three services at a level of constant combat readiness that is much higher than the rest of the armed forces. Thus, analysts monitoring conventional war indicators will be prone to miss the tell tale indicators of “integrated battle groups” already at high combat readiness in peacetime making final preparations for limited attacks. Comment: When NightWatch first began studying Indian civil and military war preparations in 1971, the Indian Army required 8 months to mobilize men from the civilian sector; recall reserves; move logistics; generate, train and prepare the forces; bring them to full combat readiness and move 750,000 soldiers in 25 to 28 divisions with about 2,000 tanks to attack positions in western India, In late 1986, during Operation Brass Tacks, India shortened that preparation process, but it was still considerable. By the time of the Kargil War in early 1999, the Army reduced the time to attain full combat readiness in battle positions to 45 days. By the January 2002 crisis, the Indian Army had reduced the time to one month, with 750,000 men and some 4,000 tanks in battle positions and capable of attacking after three weeks of preparations. Full combat readiness was reached in the fourth week. In June 2002, the Army also showed it can maintain that large force in the field at a high state of readiness for up to six months, summer or winter. No other Army has achieved those results for a force that size. Since 2004, India has adopted the Cold Start Doctrine, which has a long history in Soviet strategic military writings, more so than in the West. It emerged from Soviet leadership distrust in the reliability and precision of intelligence warning of a NATO attack. It was a safeguard against warning failure and surprise attack. However, it was never clear whether the Soviets achieved the ability to launch a nuclear attack from a cold start. The Indians have taken the doctrine in an all-arms direction, which logically would include nuclear strikes by all three services because all of them have some nuclear weapons delivery capability. The record of Indian achievement in reducing the time to prepare the armed forces for conventional war is such that prudence commends a working hypothesis that they will do what they say they can do, as to cold start. |
| Posted by: john frum 2008-12-15 19:45 |
| #2 India is simply going to have to retaliate in kind. Pick out a hundred commercial targets, and tell the Pakistanis that these targets could be attacked at any time, via missile or bomb, and that they should all be evacuated, just in case. Watch Pakistan's economy collapse into ruin. Then bomb some randomly selected target to rubble. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-12-15 19:42 |
| #1 He did take the British aid money that Brown offered though... |
| Posted by: john frum 2008-12-15 18:44 |