It was also predictable on a front as tense as Kashmir. True, the border town of Kargil fell quiet following the withdrawal of regular Pakistani troops last month, but almost immediately their embittered guerrilla allies began stepping up attacks on Indian forces elsewhere in the disputed territory of Kashmir. There are now perhaps 2,000 Kashmiri Muslim militants backed by 1,500 foreigners, including Pakistani irregulars, Afghans and Arabs. Since the end of fighting in Kargil, they have been conducting some of the boldest hit-and-run maneuvers yet seen in a decade of local rebellion against Indian rule. In daily ambushes, rocket attacks and mine-laying operations, they have shifted their sights from police stations and other lightly defended targets to direct hits on the regular Army. They’ve killed more than 20 Indian troops, including at least four officers, in recent weeks. The message, says a Western diplomat in Delhi, is that the Pakistanis may have had to retreat from Kargil, but the local rebels “can still take on the Indian Army.”
Not surprisingly, Indian forces were still on high alert when a bulbous prop plane whirred slowly toward their border last week. They claim the French-built Atlantique flew five kilometers into Indian territory and ignored warnings to land before an Indian MiG fighter shot it down with a missile. Debris fell on both sides of the border, fueling claims by both India and Pakistan that their story was the truth. India also insisted that the Atlantique, which is capable of carrying bombs and missiles, was on a spy mission, not a routine training run, as Pakistan claims. “You can’t assume it isn’t hostile,” says retired Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, a former fighter pilot who heads the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. “Especially when cross-border shelling is going on, when men are being killed almost every day in Kashmir and there was a major armed confrontation just last month. You have to shoot.”
The Pakistanis are edgy, too. On Wednesday, Indian Army helicopters ferrying reporters to the crash site went into a sudden dive, evading an incoming Pakistani missile. (Pakistan admitted launching a Stinger missile, but said it was fired at the fighter-jet escort.) By the end of the week, there was no sign of major troop movements, nor much likelihood of larger battles as the rainy season fast approaches. “The situation is not spiraling out of control,” said Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes. “We are not on the brink of war.” Not now. But Kashmir is constantly on the brink of violence, and no one knows where it will lead.
