ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has begun moving some troops away from its western border with Afghanistan and has stopped many soldiers from going on leave amid rising tensions with India, Pakistani officials said Friday.
The move is likely to frustrate the United States, which has been pressing Pakistan to battle militants in its lawless northwest territories and working hard to cool tempers in the two nuclear-armed nations following the terrorist attacks last month in Mumbai that left 171 dead.
Two of those officials said some troops were headed to the country’s border with India, but by late in the day there appeared to be little indication that the redeployment involved large numbers of soldiers.
One senior military official, who would not say where the troops were going, said the decision to redeploy forces and place restrictions on leave was made “in view of the prevailing environment,” namely the deteriorating relations with India since the terrorist attacks. India has blamed a Pakistani militant group for the three-day siege on hotels and other buildings in the country’s financial capital.
With so little information being presented, it was unclear Friday whether the troop movements reflected a serious fear of attack from India or were intended as a warning to the Indian government.
A senior American official said on Friday afternoon that the United States military “had yet to see anything to verify the movement of Pakistan forces eastward.”
Since the terrorist attacks, India’s leaders have repeatedly said that they do not want war, but have also expressed frustration with what they have called Pakistan’s unwillingness to curtail militant groups.
The situation is complicated by deep divisions within Pakistan about how to deal with Islamic extremists, including those in its northwest territories who cross into Afghanistan to attack NATO and American troops. Under intense pressure from the United States, the government has sent troops to battle the militants there in recent months, but many Pakistanis resent the American pressure. American officials have engaged in intense diplomacy in the last month, trying to keep the relationship between India and Pakistan from worsening. Officials were worried about hostilities, but also wanted to ensure that Pakistan’s focus was not diverted from fighting militants in the northwest.
On Friday, a White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said: "We don’t want either side to take steps to raise tensions in an already tense situation."
Two Pakistani military officials who provided information on the troop movement, offered little detail and were careful and measured in their comments. They said nothing harsh or critical about India, even though they were speaking with the guarantee their names would not be used.
One of those officials confirmed that troops were being drawn from northwestern Pakistan, where the military is fighting Taliban militants on several fronts. He also said “essential troops in limited numbers are being pulled out of areas where no operations are being conducted,” or where winter weather had already limited their ability to maneuver.
Neither official would say where the troops were heading.
However, two Pakistani intelligence officials — one from military intelligence and one from the country’s premier Inter-Services Intelligence agency — suggested the situation was more serious and said some troops were moving toward the Indian border.
One of the intelligence officials described the situation as “tense” and said intelligence intercepts had led Pakistani officials to worry that India might launch a strike inside Pakistan as soon as the next three or four days. Troops on the border have been told to be on alert, the official said. The second intelligence official estimated the chance of armed conflict as about one in three.
Another Pakistani official said that for the past week the air force had been in a “point defense” posture, standing ready to defend specific key defense installations and cities — including Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore — as well as the Kahuta nuclear weapons laboratory. The forces include two squadrons of F-7 and F-16 fighters, the official said, adding that pilots are sleeping in uniform with their boots on.
The Associated Press quoted two Pakistani intelligence officials as saying that the Pakistani Army’s 14th division was being sent to Kasur and Sialkot, near the Indian border, and that around 20,000 troops were being redeployed. However, neither the scale nor the specific destination of the troops could be confirmed.
India has blamed the Mumbai attacks on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned group based in Pakistan that has fought Indian forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir for years. But Pakistani leaders have said the Indian government has not yet proven that Lashkar was involved.
The troop movements away from northwestern Pakistan, if they later prove to be significant in size, are likely to deepen concerns among American officials about Pakistan’s commitment to battling Taliban militants.
If troops are being sent toward the Indian border, the action is in contrast to efforts earlier this month to cool hostilities between the two countries, which have fought three wars since 1947.
Two weeks ago, for example, Pakistani officials went out of their way to play down what they said were two incursions by Indian warplanes into Pakistani airspace, calling them inadvertent in public even though some privately said the incursions were likely a test or a provocation. Their response to the airspace violations — which the Indian military denied — won praise from United States leaders.
For its part, India on Friday accused its neighbor and rival of “diverting attention” from terror to war, but Indian officials refused to comment on the reports of troop movements inside Pakistan.
In advising against travel to Pakistan, Indian officials said there had been reports in the Pakistani media of arrests of Indian nationals in Lahore and Multan. But they took pains not to blame the elected civilian government in Pakistan. “It seems that this is the work of other agencies in Pakistan that operate outside the law and civilian control,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
The Indian Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, met with his counterpart from Saudi Arabia, among Pakistan’s staunchest allies, as part of India’s worldwide diplomatic campaign to put pressure on Pakistan to quash terrorist groups operating on its soil.
“Instead of diverting attention from the real issue, they should concentrate on how to fight against terrorism and bring to book the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack,” Mr. Mukherjee said.
Indian officials including Mr. Singh have repeatedly said that they are not keen to go to war. Nor has the political opposition pressed for military action in response to the siege in Mumbai.
Such action, even a limited strike on terror training camps, would invite swift retaliation, officials have said privately in recent weeks. Just as important, any military standoff would only make the Pakistani Army more central to power in Islamabad — precisely what India least desires.
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