Rebels the Wild Cards in Kashmir

As Pakistan’s leaders appeared ready to order hundreds of troops out of Indian-held territory in Kashmir, one of the most dangerous questions they face is: Will all the fighters listen?

Pro-Kashmir guerrillas who are among the Pakistani-backed forces say they are staying put.

“We do not obey the government--only our religious leaders,” said Ghulam Ullah Azad, a fresh recruit of the Army of the Pure, a pro-Kashmir militant group. “I will join the holy war. If I die, God will grant me martyrdom.”

Across the arid hills of northern Pakistan, the militant Islamic guerrillas battling Indian rule in Kashmir are brushing off a deal calling for a withdrawal that was negotiated Sunday in Washington by President Clinton and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The guerrillas are pressing ahead with their operation and warn that any effort by Sharif to pull them out of Kashmir could prompt the moujahedeen, or holy warriors, to turn against the Pakistani government.

“The 130 million people of Pakistan are with us,” said Tosif Ahmed, a Pakistani veteran of the war in Kashmir. “When the time comes, we will fight for our country as well.”

The guerrillas are fighting to expel the Indians from Kashmir, a lush, mountainous region disputed since India and Pakistan gained their independence from Britain in 1947. The Pakistani government has backed an insurgency inside India since 1989, but only in the current operation have its own troops crossed into India and seized territory.

The refusal of the militants to withdraw from the Kargil area is complicating efforts to end the fighting, which began in early May when Pakistani-backed forces crossed the border and seized positions along a vital Indian highway. Hundreds of people have died on both sides, and the fighting has raised fears that the two nations, which tested nuclear weapons last year, will stumble into a wider war.

Sharif assured Clinton on Sunday that he will withdraw combatants from Indian territory, though Western diplomats say there is no sign that either Pakistani soldiers or guerrillas have begun to pull back.

On Friday, Pakistan’s leaders urged the moujahedeen to withdraw, though they previously have warned that Pakistan might not have the necessary clout to force the guerrillas’ hand.

“We will use our influence with the freedom fighters,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said. “If their concerns are not addressed, they may refuse to listen.”

Western diplomats say that Pakistani soldiers make up the bulk of the force that invaded India and that several hundred pro-Kashmir guerrillas are fighting with them. While many people here believe that the Pakistani troops would grudgingly follow an order to retreat, the moujahedeen and their supporters predict that the guerrillas will stay and fight.

“The agreement cannot be implemented,” said retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, a former chief of Pakistani intelligence who maintains ties to militant groups. “The moujahedeen will not accept it.”

Some Western diplomats say that without the assistance of the Pakistani army, which is manning the supply lines to the fighters inside India, the moujahedeen would not last very long. Though the pro-Kashmir militants have been waging a guerrilla war inside India for more than a decade, in the past they have not occupied territory.

“The moujahedeen have as many bullets as they can carry,” said a Western diplomat who requested anonymity. “When they run out, they’re finished.”

The guerrillas might be finished sooner than that. Indian military leaders reported Friday that they had pushed a large group of intruders across the Line of Control that runs through Kashmir, separating the two countries. The heavy fighting virtually cleared guerrillas from one of four sectors they had held, India said.

If the moujahedeen cannot survive on their own inside India, however, they could prove a dangerous force in Pakistan. The deal cut by Sharif has infuriated the guerrillas and the Islamic political parties in Pakistan. There have been scattered demonstrations around the country, including some in which protesters have shouted “Down with Sharif!” and burned effigies of the prime minister.

In January, a group of suspected Islamic militants tried to kill Sharif, and many people in Pakistan and abroad worry that the moujahedeen and their supporters might turn against Sharif en masse.

Said one Western diplomat: “Sharif is in danger.”

Many of the guerrillas fighting in Kashmir got their start in Afghanistan during the war in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation there. The militants say they are inspired by a doctrinaire form of Islam that condemns Western democracy, values and technology.

Fighters trained in Afghanistan--including Pakistanis, Afghans and others--have played roles in militant Islamic movements in Egypt, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Algeria.

The irony for Sharif is that he has taken a series of steps in the past year aimed at appealing to the hard-line Islamic movement. He has proposed imposing Islamic law in Pakistan and has publicly backed the fighters operating inside Indian-held Kashmir.

“Sharif has encouraged the militants and the fundamentalists,” said Ghazi Salahuddin, a newspaper columnist in the port city of Karachi. “I don’t think they can overthrow the government. But if they create enough chaos, and the establishment becomes divided, they could gain the upper hand.”