Kashmir

SRINAGAR, Kashmir -- From sandbagged bunkers that line the winding streets in this old city, Indian troops watch nervously for the enemy: Muslim separatist guerrillas who dart forward, tossing grenades or loosing bursts of automatic-weapons fire before vanishing into the bazaars.For India, ruling Kashmir is much like an occupation: an army and police force of at least 300,000, bunkers everywhere, search operations that paralyze daily life and shoot-to-kill orders.Kashmiri human rights groups say that two-thirds of the 30,000 people killed in the five-year conflict have been civilians.

Dispute over Kashmir key to region's peace It is not enough for Pakistan to move against its militants and their supporters ("Pakistan moves against charity tied to attacks," Dec. 12). To prevent future attacks like Mumbai in India and bombings in Peshawar, Pakistan, these two neighbors must settle the Kashmir dispute. The two nations cannot possibly have normal relations without first resolving this 60-year-old, festering sore. Without the strong involvement of the United States leading the international community in helping to resolve that issue, very little will be accomplished.

INDIA AND PAKISTAN last met to discuss their dispute over Kashmir in July of last year -- talks that ended badly with claims that Indian hard-liners had scuttled any formal agreement. Now both nations must be brought back into sustained negotiations, and this can only happen with more pressure on both sides from the United States. The stakes cannot be overstated -- for the United States, which has short-term interests in rooting out Islamic terrorists in Pakistan, and even more critically for all nations interested in lowering the very real potential for the world's first nuclear war. Despite U.S. efforts since Sept.

This is the first installment of a monthly feature exploring the stores, restaurants and sights of Maryland neighborhoods. Here's an open invitation to city dwellers and suburbanites alike to get in on one of Baltimore's latest makeovers. Sprung from neglected waterfront property, Baltimore's glossy new Harbor East neighborhood boasts luxury hotels, office towers, fine restaurants and a melange of boutiques and stores. The burgeoning district is not yet complete and begs for more pedestrians to fill its streets and stores.

India seems not to have learned the lessons its own founding fathers taught their British rulers nearly 75 years ago. In brutally repressing the nationalist movement in Kashmir -- 34 peaceful demonstrators were killed a week ago by paramilitary police -- the Indian government is feeding the flames it wants to quench.It is reminiscent of the Amritsar massacre in 1919, when British troops fired on peaceful Indian demonstrators trapped in a garden with the only exit blocked by soldiers. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, wrote movingly about the effect of the massacre on his father.

Violence continues to overwhelm reason in the storied Vale of Kashmir. The lovely mountain state in the north of India is wracked by politico-religious violence. The latest victim is a town of 20,000 people which housed the shrine of Kashmir's Muslim patron saint. In a couple of days last week two fires swept through the town's wood structures, leveling it. Angry Muslim residents blame the Indian Army for having set both fires. Indian officials blame a band of Muslim militants who had occupied the town and defied the soldiers for months.

CHARAR-I-SHARIEF, India -- From an almond grove above the ruins of this ancient town, the thick white smoke spiraling into the air seems like a totem of the miseries that have afflicted Kashmir in the five years since decades of political tensions in the region erupted into guerrilla war.In a conflict that has taken at least 20,000 lives, there has been nothing to galvanize feelings among Kashmir's Muslim majority, nor to shock the Indian government, like...

SRINAGAR, India - The astonishing thing about India's only majority-Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir is that the world does not pay more attention to it. This is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And it is one of the most dangerous, for ownership is contested by two nuclear powers that hate and distrust each other no matter how much they talk of trying to work out their differences. India and Pakistan have fought three wars, and in the enduring conflict over Kashmir, each has brandished nuclear weapons, holding the rest of the world's attention for at least a while.

NEW DELHI - The Arab-Israeli controversies that take center stage in the United States are off the front page in India. That's because Indians have their own festering sore that is a year older, has caused almost as many wars and in world terms is even more dangerous, because miscalculation could lead to a nuclear exchange. The open wound is the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was ceded to India after the British partition of 1947 instead of to the Muslim state of Pakistan because the Hindu maharaja chose India -even though the majority of the population was, and is, Muslim.

WASHINGTON - Simmering since the partition of India in 1947, the dispute over the territory of Kashmir has caused two major wars between India and Pakistan and claimed tens of thousands of lives. It now threatens to ignite a new conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors that could overwhelm the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. India and Pakistan control portions of Kashmir, but each claims the territory to be wholly its own. Fighting between Indian troops and Islamic insurgents close to the heavily fortified border has intensified since the late 1980s.

With the Cricket World Cup coming next month, the air is full of speculation about another Pakistan-India match. Cricket is more than a sport for Pakistanis and Indians. It is a cult followed by millions across the subcontinent with a passion inconceivable even to ardent American football and baseball fans. Devotion to cricket is synonymous with patriotism. Political leaders, media icons and the general public all join in the hysteria. Matches between the two rival cricketing nations foster incredible emotional energy.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Pervez Musharraf pushed for a compromise settlement of the Kashmir conflict yesterday, telling Indians in a televised interview that he is prepared to give up territorial claims in the 59-year-old conflict if India will reciprocate. Frustrated by what he says is the Indian government's slow response to his months-old proposals, Musharraf stepped up a media campaign in India by giving an interview to a prominent private channel, NDTV. But his appearance caused "scant ripples" in India's government, the Times of India newspaper reported.

Steve Centanni's neighbors are worried about him. Shortly after the Fox News correspondent's abduction in Gaza Aug. 14, a sign went up in the lobby of his 200-unit apartment building in Washington asking residents to pray for his safe return. "He's very popular, a very nice fellow," longtime tenant Jim Cooley said last night, adding that, unlike some of his neighbors, Centanni always took the trouble to say hello to everyone. They all recognized the veteran reporter, Cooley said, when his photo appeared on TV with news of his kidnapping.

Bombay, India -- Under intense pressure to show progress, authorities identified their first suspects yesterday and detained about 20 people for questioning in connection with this week's deadly railway bombings. Indian news media broadcast photos of two men believed to be linked to Tuesday's string of rush-hour blasts along Bombay's crowded western commuter line, an attack that killed as many as 200 people and wounded hundreds more. But there were conflicting reports as to the suspects' names, and authorities provided no background on the men or details on what their roles might have been.

NEW DELHI, India --Thirty-five Hindus were killed in recent days in two incidents in the Indian-administered portion of the disputed Kashmir province, police said yesterday. The killings were believed to be the work of Islamist militants, days before a meeting of the Indian prime minister with Kashmiri separatists. In one incident, gunmen stormed a village in a district called Doda, dragged Hindu villagers from their homes and shot 22 to death. In another, in neighboring Udhampur district, suspected militants kidnapped 13 villagers from a remote mountainous spot; four of their bodies were found lying in the woods late Sunday and the rest were discovered yesterday, according to police.

NEW DELHI -- The South Asian earthquake struck at the epicenter of a principal recruiting ground and logistical center for global terrorists, leveling a number of terrorist nurseries and training camps in an area that serves as the last main refuge of al-Qaida. Much of the quake's destruction occurred in the two terrorist-infested areas of northern Pakistan where Osama bin Laden may be holed up - Pakistani-held Kashmir and the North-West Frontier Province. The Oct. 8 calamity brought foreign teams and troops to that restricted region in Pakistan and gave the international community the potential leverage to steer the area away from terrorism.

WASHINGTON -- The number of casualties from the powerful Oct. 8 earthquake that struck the Kashmir region of Pakistan and India in the western Himalayas still is rising. But some good might emerge from the disaster. The quake's epicenter lay near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's part of disputed Kashmir. At least 40,000 people died, nearly twice that many were injured and another 2 million left homeless. Damage in Indian Kashmir, across the unofficial border called the Line of Control, was less catastrophic but still severe.

PHILADELPHIA -- When the tsunami swallowed huge swaths of South Asia in December, the United Nations appealed for $1 billion in emergency aid. The appeal reached 80 percent of its goal in 10 days. Governments and ordinary citizens all around the world dug deep to help. But by the time a massive earthquake devastated a remote Himalayan region of Pakistan on Oct. 8 and killed at least 73,000 people, the world was reeling from donor fatigue. The Niger famine, the genocide in Darfur and devastating hurricanes in the Southern United States - all that giving had emptied people's wallets.

NEW DELHI, India -- As the death toll climbed to 59, investigators combed through piles of rubble yesterday for clues to the identities and methods of those responsible for bombings that rocked the Indian capital during preparations for a major Hindu holiday. Jittery customers trickled back to busy shopping districts hit by the blasts. Police heightened security throughout the city and scurried to respond to several reports of suspicious packages, including one at a school for the blind.