Insurgents push into Kashmir

"As long as the militants have a base outside of Indian control, there is nothing that we or the world can do to limit terrorist infiltration from Pakistan," says Ajai Sahni, director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a conservative think tank in New Delhi.

The challenge that India faces in Kashmir mirrors the problems that American forces are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dr. Sahni says. A stronger military "has no advantage in a guerrilla war, and this is registering in the mind of the Islamist strategist," he says.

While India portrays the Kashmir insurgency as a foreign intrusion, and Pakistan portrays it as an indigenous freedom struggle, the truth lies between.

In Baramulla district, which runs along some of the most rugged terrain in the 460-mile Line of Control, villagers have grown accustomed to the sight of gunmen - some are strangers from Pakistan, others are neighbors.

Baramulla is a major route both for infiltration into Indian Kashmir, and increasingly, other troubled Indian states.

"The way the numbers are going, the attacks will increase," says a senior state police official in Baramulla headquarters. "We hear from radio intercepts that the militants are desperate. They say, 'Do something, you are late, what is this?' People are becoming frustrated on that side," he says, referring to Pakistan.

Manzoor Ahmed, police chief of Baramulla's largest town, Bandipora, says his town is one of the biggest transit points for infiltration, and these days, there are just as many Kashmiris heading to Pakistan for training as there are militants coming to Kashmir to fight.

"Lashkar-e Tayyaba is basing camps here in Bandipora itself, up in the hills," says Mr. Ahmed, referring to a Pakistan-based militant group founded in Lahore. In addition, up to 40 local boys have disappeared this year, most of them assumed to have headed to Pakistan for training. "The militants get good shelter from the people."

These militants are dangerous not just because of their attacks, another police official says privately. They also form a virtual parallel government, an authority in remote areas where Indian officials rarely go. "We are in a stalemate," the official says. "The militants avoid confrontation, and save themselves for another day. And our forces too have become less active. They know we won't be able to solve this in one day, so why lose your life?"

Back in Hakabara, local laborers have begun to shovel away the remains of Jana Begum's home to find any remaining weapons that the militants might have been carrying.

Little is known about the militants except that they had shouted at the Indian soldiers in Urdu, the language of Pakistan, but also much of north India. They are assumed to be Lashkar members, as that is the group that operates most extensively in the Baramulla district. Lashkar had extensive ties with the Pakistani military - ties that the government insist were cut in January of 2002.

"This is a normal contact," says Col. R.P. Kalita, commander of an elite counterinsurgency battalion. "We had been getting information that the terrorists had come to this area, so we conducted a house to house search, and then they opened fire on us."

Jana Begum's son, Nazir Ahmed, has an empty stare. "Six or seven years ago, militants used to come here, but not in recent years," he says, pausing briefly. "We just want to work, to make a living."

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