Insurgents push into Kashmir

In this tiny rice-growing village, where gossip spares no one, and where every birth, graduation, and death is duly noted, it is surprising that nobody noticed just when a pair of strangers came to town, armed with Kalashnikovs, grenades, and explosives.

Nobody remembers when they entered Jana Begum's brick house while family members were out harvesting. Nobody can say, either, when the Indian Army came and shot the house down brick by brick to kill them.

What people now know is that the two militants are dead, Jana Begum's family is homeless, and the 14-year insurgency in Kashmir that has cost more than 40,000 lives is nowhere close to ending.

After a five-month hiatus, during which Pakistan and India made a failed attempt to talk peace, militants have been making up for lost time. They are slipping across the mountainous cease-fire line that will soon become impassable with snow, setting up this volatile Himalayan valley for a winter of renewed violence and cold relations between the nuclear rivals.

For the people like Ms. Begum, whose destroyed house once stood on the front lines of this conflict, the violence has an even more immediate effect.

"I am a widow, my family are just laborers," says Begum. "I don't know where I will stay tonight. I have no land, no money.... What can I do?"

The issue of infiltration was a major point of contention at last month's United Nations General Assembly. Notably, both sides stuck to positions they have held for the past decade. India said that infiltration, or "cross-border terrorism," must stop before peace talks can progress. Pakistan, meanwhile, pointed to a longstanding UN resolution calling for a plebiscite, and reiterated that it has officially cut all ties to Kashmiri militant groups, but supports the "indigenous freedom struggle" by moral and diplomatic means.

But the Pakistani line on Kashmir cuts less ice in Washington these days. In talks with Indian President Atal Behari Vajpayee, President Bush said he thought that Pakistan should do more to fulfill its promise to stop allowing its soil to be used to launch attacks. Pakistan's president protested that if India's built-up forces cannot stop militants, then neither can Pakistani guards.

With diplomacy going nowhere, infiltrations are on the rise. In a weeklong operation wrapped up Friday, Army troops surrounded and killed at least 19 militants sighted 10 days earlier near the border town of Gurez in northern Kashmir. In the first nine months of this year, the Indian Army has stopped 35 groups from crossing into Kashmir from Pakistan, compared to 27 deterred in the same period last year. Army troops have killed 104 militants in the border region this year, up from 72 last year.

Lt. Col. Mukhtiar Singh, the Indian Army spokesman in Srinagar, says the number of militants killed has increased because more are attempting to cross, and the Army has stepped up its vigilance and technical savvy. As if on cue, Colonel Singh's telephone rings. "Accha, wonderful," he says finally. "There have been three more militants killed, and three Kalashnikovs recovered near Pattan. In the past 12 hours, eight militants have been killed. And that is just the Army I'm talking about, not the police or the other security forces."

But such numbers hide a different truth: The number of militants operating inside Kashmir has not decreased, but remains at 3,000, according to Indian Army officials. For every militant killed, another volunteer replaces him. These fighters manage to tie down more than 300,000 Indian troops and paramilitary forces, at a mounting cost to Indian taxpayers. In a war of attrition, victory is temporary at best.

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