Kayani's last offensive - India Today

The 20 men who crossed the border at Poonch-a remote, rugged border district of Jammu and Kashmir-were a lethal mix of heavily armed soldiers and militants operating together as assassins. On August 6, this unusual group sneaked nearly 400 metres across the Line of Control (LOC) to get to their target: A group of six Indian soldiers out on patrol. Five of them were killed and the sixth wounded. The perpetrators melted into the night. The incident triggered a furious war of words between India and Pakistan, and the nations appeared to be locked in yet another eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. Officers pay their last respects to the five Indian soldiers. The murder of the five soldiers is the worst breach of a 2003 ceasefire agreement signed between India and Pakistan and occurred just 40 km away from the spot where two Indian soldiers were beheaded in Poonch on January 8. More worrying, intelligence officials say, is that these incidents reveal the contours of the Pakistan Army's offensive. "The Pakistan Army has signalled a return to violence in Kashmir this year," says a senior intelligence official. "It has activated Border Action Teams (groups of soldiers and militants) and stepped up militant activity inside the Valley." Stepping up of pressure on the 740-km LOChas seen an 80 per cent increase in ceasefire violations this year over 2012. Last year, there were 28 violations; this year has already seen 42. Firing on the border, meant to give cover to militants crossing into J&K, has been matched by an increase in violence inside the Valley. Forty security men have been killed in the Valley in the past eight months . Last year, only 17 security personnel died. The plan, intelligence agencies believe, originated at the Pakistan Army's General Headquarters (GHQ), Rawalpindi. "The aim of the carefully calibrated violence levels in Kashmir is to raise the India bogey to unite the Pakistan Army and militants and derail peace talks with India," says a senior Indian Army officer. Army officials say there are 300 militants waiting to cross and the Pakistan Army wants them in place this year so that they can disrupt the Lok Sabha elections expected in May and the state Assembly elections in November next year. The architect of this plan is General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, due to retire on November 28. "He is targeting the civilian establishments in Islamabad and New Delhi, and setting the agenda for his successor," says an Indian intelligence official. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been suspicious of the army and intelligence agency ISI. The feeling is mutual. The army's unease at seeing Sharif as PM has now turned into discomfort with the new PM's peace overtures towards India: The July 5 announcement of former diplomat and peacenik Shahryar Khan as the Track-II ambassador with India and the resumption of the composite dialogue process between the two countries next month. The composite dialogue, shelved after the November 26, 2008 attack on Mumbai, will get its first push as the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers meet in New York on the sidelines of a United Nations meet next month. The first warning signs of a long hot summer in Kashmir came on March 13. Two terroris ts killed five CRPF personnel near Srinagar. It was the first fedayeen or suicide attack in the Valley in three years and an ominous portent of carefully coordinated acts of violence to follow. On June 24, militants ambushed and killed eight Indian soldiers on the outskirts of Srinagar. The attack came a day ahead of the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and three weeks after Sharif was sworn in. The message was clear: A civilian government in Islamabad would have no impact on GHQ's plans. And therein lies the complication for India. Peace with Pakistan is a hope that Manmohan Singh has nurtured all through his nine-year tenure. The sentiment has only been strengthened by Pakistan's first civilian transition of power. Sharif, who fought the elections on the plank of peace with India, is being seen as a person New Delhi can do business with. This desire for peace at any cost was evidently the reason behind Defence Minister A.K. Antony's bizarre explanation of the incident. Making a suo motu statement in both houses of Parliament a day after the Poonch killings, Antony said, "The ambush was carried out by approximately 20 heavily armed terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms." An Indian Army spokesperson's statement that directly blamed the Pakistan Army for the attack was hastily withdrawn. Antony was pilloried in a high-decibel attack by BJP leader Sushma Swaraj for having offered Pakistan an escape route. Protesters laid siege to Antony's official residence on 9, Krishna Menon Marg. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs flatly denied that the country had anything to do with the deaths of the five Indian soldiers. The Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Public Relations said a special hotline was established between DGMOs of the two armies to discuss the situation. "India needs a strategy t hat combines military action on the ground with a well-calibrated psychological and diplomatic offensive to get out of this quagmire," says Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, additional director of the Centre for Air Power Studies. Sources within the newly formed Sharif government said the tension between the two countries was unlikely to influence the resumption of the composite dialogue. "Prime Minister Sharif is not worried about the current situation," a close Sharif aide told INDIA TODAY. "He knows that non-state actors want to sabotage his efforts to establish cordial relations with India." Sharif assumed office after 14 years in the political wilderness. He has stayed silent so far because he has a bigger game plan. Soon after his election in May this year, Sharif publicly announced he would pick General Kayani's successor on "memerit". Meanwhile, he is keen not to tread on the army chief's toes. He is in no mood to repeat the mistake of 1998 when his appointee, General Pervez Musharraf, eventually overthrew him in a coup. Sharif is also facing the triple challenge of an economic meltdown, sectarian killings and an upswing in attacks by the Pakistani Taliban. The Taliban have staged four major attacks this year, attacking military checkposts, army patrols, an ISI regional office and a prison. The attacks come even as US and NATO forces have started a drawdown for a complete pullout by 2014. The Pakistan Army believes it will hold the trump card in the Afghan game after the US vacates that country. Analysts now say there is a connection between what is happening in Afghanistan and the violence in Kashmir. "It is very difficult to delink the current increase in violence in Kashmir from the events in Afghanistan," says Harsh Pant, a reader in international relations in the defence studies department at King's College, London. "The militant groups are becoming emboldened and they have started looking at India as the main target," he says. It's the beginning of a dangerous new subcontinental game. via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNF5zEKevhqQWq4_yA9eaYaqHO1OjA&url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/general-ashfaq-parvez-kayani-pakistan-killing-of-indian-soldiers-loc/1/298822.html

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