Tensions between India and Pakistan are on the rise. A terror attack against tourists late last month threatens to bring the two countries, each the possessor of a nuclear arsenal, to the brink of war. Cooler heads must prevail.
On April 22, militants attacked tourists in Pahalgam, a mountain resort in Indian-administered Kashmir. Twenty-six people were killed, 25 of them Indians and the other a Nepali national. No group has claimed responsibility for the murders, but Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri has said that the militants had “cross-border linkages,” implying that they were from Pakistan.
Police said that two of the three suspects were Pakistani nationals and identified them as “LeT terrorists,” a reference to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group that was responsible for the deaths of 175 people, including nine of the attackers, in Mumbai in 2008, one of the worst terrorist attacks in Indian history. At first a little-known group, The Resistance Front, claimed responsibility for the incident but it subsequently denied any involvement. (The group is thought to be an offshoot of LeT.) The Pakistan government has condemned the killings and denied that it too had any connection to the attack.
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