As both India and Pakistan continue to prepare for war, there is mounting evidence that many of the Al-Qaeda militants who fled Afghanistan have regrouped in Pakistan with the aim of destabilising relations between the two states through a series of high-profile terrorist attacks in India and Kashmir. If so, then concerns that Al-Qaeda could gain access to nuclear weapons may be realised.
At first glance, Pakistan stands to lose most from a conflict with its neighbour. India has a larger nuclear arsenal as well as superiority in terms of conventional forces. However, military analysts agree that both sides are likely to suffer horrendous casualties if the present clashes escalate into a nuclear exchange. So the obvious question is: who stands to gain if Pakistan and India do go to war?
The answer could be Al-Qaeda and its militant followers. Despite repeated claims by the government of General Pervez Musharraf that Pakistani security forces have secured the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan (for which US Congress recently allocated an additional $75 million in aid), the evidence is clear: members of both the Taliban forces and Al-Qaeda have escaped into Pakistan where very limited efforts have been made to track them down. In turn, intelligence reports indicate that significant numbers have attached themselves to the extremist groups responsible for launching attacks against Indian targets both in the disputed region of Indian-administered Kashmir and in India proper.
The two main militant groups which have been bolstered by the arrival of the fugitives from Afghanistan (many of whom are believed to have trained in the camps operated by Osama bin Laden and his associates) are the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The former is alleged to have been behind an attack on the regional state assembly in Kashmir last October which left around 40 people dead, while the latter has claimed responsibility for suicide bomb attacks against Indian targets and is calling for jihad or 'holy war' to 'liberate' the whole of India from Hindu rule and restore Muslim control.
Despite repeated pledges from General Musharraf that he will launch a crackdown against these militant groups, western intelligence experts suggest that it would be impossible for the extremists to operate as effectively as they do without some degree of collusion with the notorious Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) which is known to have had close links with both the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda. As JID has been warning for months, the real risk that Bin Laden's group may obtain access to weapons of mass destruction (including nuclear missiles) comes not from illicit deals with the Russian mafia, but from Al-Qaeda's close relationship with Pakistan's military and security services.