Pakistan using terrorists as strategic tool against India

Pakistan has, over past several decades, been using terrorists as a strategic tool against India to achieve its goals in Kashmir, several American experts have told a powerful Congressional panel, warning the US against mediating between the two nations on the issue.

Testifying before a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on "Afghanistan and Pakistan: Understanding and Engaging Regional Stakeholders," experts told lawmakers that this dangerous policy needs to be ended.

They also observed that such a policy now seems to have backfired as the same terrorists and extremists groups have gone against the Pakistani establishment, which is reflected in series of terrorist attacks in Lahore recently.

"Over the last many years Pakistan has been covertly supporting Kashmir terrorist groups -- now they're called Punjabi terrorist groups -- to harass India in Kashmir," said Wendy Chamberlin, president of the prestigious Middle East Institute and former US ambassador to Pakistan.

"Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad are some of these groups. Indians regard them as just as much a terrorist group as al Qaeda, and certainly the horrific attack at Mumbai is evidence of that," said Chamberlin.

Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow for South Asia in the Heritage Foundation's Asia Studies Center, cautioned the US to
avoid falling into the trap of directly mediating in the decades-old Kashmir issue.

"The US is more likely to have success in defusing Indo-Pakistani tensions if it plays a quiet role in prodding the two sides to resume talks that had made substantial progress from 2004 to 2007, even on Kashmir," she said.

Curtis said Pakistani security officials calculate that the Taliban offers the best chance for countering India's regional influence.

"Pakistan also believes that India foments separatism in its own Baluchistan province. Given these concerns, I think it is in India's interest to ensure that its involvement in Afghanistan is transparent to Pakistan, and the US has a role to play in ensuring this," she said.

Chamberlin said Pakistan had hoped for a more friendly government in Afghanistan so that "it would not have to face an adversary on both the western and the eastern border".

"Pakistan has been quite... distressed that Indians have re-established themselves so strongly in Afghanistan after 2001," he said testifying before the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee.

Chamberlin said Pakistan is upset about Indian aid projects along its border and about Indian road construction and has been fearful that India is using its foothold in Afghanistan as a platform for a spy network.

"It's accused India of launching some anti-government assistance to groups within Pakistan from India," he said, adding, Pakistan is disappointed to have lost its defense strategy of strategic depth.