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Sharief warned of dire consequences

A Muslim militant group fighting Indian soldiers in Kashmir today warned Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief of 'damaging consequences' if his actions hurt the 'cause of Kashmir.''

The Harakat Mujahideen group said the US-Pakistan agreement, designed to end the conflict with India, would have no impact on the battlefield in Kashmir.

''No (Pakistani) government has ever survived if its actions are damaging to the cause of Kashmir. Nawaz Sharief's fate would not be different if he chooses to intervene in our affairs,'' Harakat's chief Fazalur Rehman Khalil said.

Harakat is one of the four groups which say they have been fighting intense battles with the Indian troops in the Kargil-Drass sectors. Its camps in Afghanistan were among the targets of a US missile attack last year against suspected hideouts of Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden.

''Politically speaking it will have no impact,'' Khalil said of the agreement. ''Pakistan was never there and whatever it says the guns are in our hands,'' Khalil said.

Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed has also opposed the agreement.

Several political leaders too are critical of the agreement. They have come down against Sharief's visit to the US, terming it as betrayal of the sacrifices of the Mujahideen fighting in Kargil.

Jamaat Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad said there was no moral justification for the withdrawal from Kargil, adding that any bargain against national interest would not be acceptable. Instead America should compel India to solve the Kashmir issue, he said.

Talking on the present situation, veteran politician Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan said, ''It is either now or never.''

Pakistan Peoples Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto, at present in the US, said if the Pakistan army was removed from Kargil there would be a civil war in the country.

Imran khan, cricketer turned politician and chief of the Tehrik-e-Insaf party, has criticised Sharief's visit to the US before taking the nation into confidence. He said he ''would support the prime minister if he insists on the solution of the Kashmir problem with the US president but would bitterly oppose him if Kargil is surrendered upon''.

UNI

The Kargil Crisis

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