Looking Down the Barrel

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usharraf started slowly, banning the two organizations that India linked to the Dec. 13 attack, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and freezing their bank accounts. Then, under U.S. pressure, he had the groups' leaders, 22 of their henchmen and more than 100 other extremists arrested in the name of domestic security, and instructed his intelligence agency to scale back its support of insurgents going into Kashmir.

In fact, since Musharraf took over the country in a bloodless coup in 1999, he has wanted to crack down on the country's extremist religious groups, which often feed people into militant organizations, including those fighting for Kashmir. It's not a task for the fainthearted. Three weeks ago, the brother of Pakistan Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider was gunned down in the port city of Karachi because, police believe, Haider was outspoken against fanatical religious groups.

On Dec. 25, Musharraf gave a speech against "wicked, bigoted" religious extremism, saying it could lead "to our own internal destruction." But even if he had his own reasons, once India demanded a crackdown, it became politically dicey for Musharraf to pull it off. "The shriller the Indians, the more difficult it is for Pakistan," notes a Western diplomat in Islamabad. Still, Musharraf's crackdown against the militants has at least impressed Washington. "It's real, and it's going to continue," says a senior State Department official.

The U.S. has been intensely involved in mediating the dispute. Because Washington is friendlier with both India and Pakistan than ever before, its role has been elevated beyond recognition. In the three weeks after Dec. 13, Powell phoned Musharraf four times and Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh three times, pleading with both sides to "slow down" their escalation toward war. President Bush called Musharraf and Vajpayee as well. Along the way, Powell pleaded with Musharraf to act more forcefully against the militants. Then, in every call to Singh, he emphasized what Musharraf was doing.

As the situation evolved, Powell got into the details of the army maneuvers. Noting that the Pakistanis were acting against the militants, Powell told Singh, "You need to reciprocate." He asked that India halt its soldiers at their assembly points instead of transporting them to the front lines; late last week New Delhi announced it would do just that. For Washington, which still needs Pakistan's assistance in hunting down al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, the stakes are enormous. "A war between India and Pakistan would make the conflict in Afghanistan an afterthought," says Hathaway. "You could kiss goodbye any hopes for capturing Osama bin Laden."

Of course, on the ground in Kashmir, the stakes are high and personal. On both sides of the Line of Control, people are fleeing border villages in fear of war. They aren't the only ones on the move. At this time of year, Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, is usually teeming with teenagers in camouflage jackets who have arrived from Pakistan proper for winter training as jihadis. But the young radicals these days are sullenly waiting for buses, headed not for war but for home. Militant groups confirm that they have been told by the Pakistani government to wind up their operations, at least for now, and to evict "guest mujahedin," non-Kashmiri volunteers. The biggest training camp in Muzaffarabad, run by the now banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, is quiet, as are its sister facilities not far away. "People no longer sleep at the camps," says a Kashmiri militant in Aath Maqam, a village near the Line of Control. "There is a fear of attack by India." In the past couple of weeks, pro-jihad flags and posters that lined the streets have been hauled in or scrubbed away.

Commanders of the insurgency insist that despite Pakistan's crackdown, they can continue sending infiltrators across the LOC, which has many secret passages. "We know we cannot operate fully without government help. But we can carry on. Instead of 10, we can send two people into India now," says a Lashkar militant. But without the help Pakistan once offered, life will become tougher for the militants. They will face two enemy forces—one Pakistani, the other Indian.

If war between India and Pakistan is averted, the countries will still have plenty of challenges between them—and on their own. Musharraf will have to explain to his people his crackdown on terrorism, which he used to call by a more glorified name. Lots of those people lived for the jihad that is now under such attack. "When I was a child, my mother wanted me to get settled in London," says Abu Haroon, 28, returned to Pakistan after two years fighting in Kashmir. "But I opted for jihad after one of my friends died in India. I abandoned my education and don't know anything else than to fight and die over there." Haroon is a walking metaphor for his nation. Pakistan's main moral purpose for decades has been to stand up to India, and Kashmir has been its principal platform.

India has its own worries. The indigenous militants in Kashmir now think they have a fighting chance—and they're as bloodthirsty as their visiting colleagues—at forcing India to start addressing decades of grievances. Given the stakes of a new India- Pakistan war, the rest of the world, especially Washington, might now become involved in untangling the Kashmir mess, a notion India has long abhorred. Which goes to show that when the world starts changing, no one knows where it's going to stop.