India May Consider ‘Precision’ Strikes in Pakistan (Update1)

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- India may consider “precision” strikes inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir if its neighbor doesn’t cooperate in controlling terrorists, a U.S. private intelligence company said.

“Indian military operations against targets in Pakistan have in fact been prepared and await the signal to go forward,” Austin, Texas-based Stratfor said in a report today, without providing details of its source of information.

Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors rose last month after terrorists killed 164 people in attacks targeting Mumbai’s main railway station, two five-star hotels, a Jewish center and a hospital. India blamed the attacks on “elements” in Pakistan, which then demanded evidence to support the accusation. India is unlikely to risk war by escalating the situation, an analyst said.

“This is an incorrect assessment,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based independent policy research group. “India won’t initiate action of warfare. It will exert greater international pressure.”

India has threatened action and joined the U.S. to pressure Pakistan for action against all involved in the attacks, Stratfor said. It hasn’t repeated the military buildup that deployed 750,000 troops in Kashmir within a week after a terrorist attack on the nation’s Parliament in December 2001, Stratfor said.

India put its Border Security Force on high alert on Dec. 18, Stratfor said. That force, which currently has 45,000 troops deployed along the 2,030-mile border with Pakistan, has a mandate to prevent infiltration and would not be involved in any combat operations, Stratfor said.

‘Little Choice’

“New Delhi has little choice but to respond,” Stratfor said in the report. “And if Islamabad will not cooperate in controlling the militants, India will have to take unilateral action.”

While Pakistan detained at least 16 suspected militants following the Mumbai attacks, it says they won’t be extradited to India and may be tried in Pakistani courts. Pakistan hasn’t said whether the arrests are linked to the Mumbai attacks.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Indian and Pakistani leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad this month to urge cooperation between the two in the wake of the attacks.

India, which fought three wars with Pakistan since independence in 1947, has refused to allow its cricket team to tour Pakistan next year, the Pakistan Cricket Board said this week.

To contact the reporter on this story: Subramaniam Sharma in New Delhi at ssharma@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mike Millard at mmillard2@bloomberg.net.