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Opinion | Kashmir attack: is terror group JeM pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war?
- Pakistan-based Jaish e-Mohammed (JeM) has for years sought to end India’s sovereign hold on Jammu and Kashmir
- The ruling BJP is facing tremendous pressure to take a tough line on Islamabad
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Thursday’s attack on Indian troops in the Kashmir Valley by the Pakistan-based Jaish e-Mohammed (JeM) militant group seems to have been strategically timed and meant to convey a message, ostensibly on behalf of Pakistan.
The Trump administration has been bent on a military withdrawal from Afghanistan and leaning on Pakistan to pressure the Taliban in peace talks. Pakistan is hosting a meeting next week in Islamabad between the Taliban and the United States before the next round of negotiations in Qatar at the end of the month.
It is likely Pakistan may use this opportunity to convey a subtle message, as it has done in the past, that it can get away with periodic attacks in Kashmir.
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JeM has for years sought to end India’s sovereign hold on Jammu and Kashmir.
Just two months after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the JeM attacked India’s parliament in New Delhi. Experts suggest the US asked India not to retaliate militarily as it would have affected its deployment across several bases in Pakistan for operations in Afghanistan and lead to Islamabad mobilising the army for its own mission instead of helping the US seal the Afghan border.
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