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US takes note of Pak assistance to Kashmiri terrorists

The Clinton administration has taken note of the ''continued credible reports'' of official Pakistani support for Kashmiri militant groups that engage in terrorism'' in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The US state department, in its annual report, 'Patterns of Global Terrorism -- 1997', which was released in Washington on Thursday, specifically named Harkat-ul-Ansar, an Islamic militant group based in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, which, it said, indulged in violent activities primarily in the Indian state.

It said the HuA trained its militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It collected 'donations' from sympathisers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf and Islamic states and from Pakistanis and Kashmiris. Last October, the United States banned the organisation under its Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

The report said it was also responsible for the July 1995 kidnapping of six Western tourists in Kashmir. Their whereabouts are still not known. One of them, an American citizen, managed to escape, but a Norwegian hostage was killed. ''There is no evidence to corroborate claims by multiple Kashmiri militant sources that the hostages were killed in December 1995,'' it added.

The report noted without comment Pakistan's assertion that ''it continues to provide moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiri militants but denies allegations of other assistance.''

However, simultaneously, the documents referred to the ''continued reports of official Pakistani support to militants fighting in Kashmir.''

It said ''the Indian and Pakistani governments each claim that the intelligence service of the other country sponsors bombings on its territory.''

It said that security problems persisted in India because of insurgencies in Kashmir and in the North-East. The violence also had spread to New Delhi. There were more than 25 bombings in the city in 1997 -- mainly in the market places and buses of Old Delhi -- that left ten persons dead and more than 200 injured.

These attacks appeared to be aimed at spreading terror among the public rather than causing casualties, it said, adding that 100 bombings with similar characteristics took place elsewhere in the country in 1997, most with no claims of responsibility.

Although foreigners were not likely targets of these attacks, the report pointed out, foreign tourists were injured in a train bombing outside Delhi in October.

Dealing with the situation inside Pakistan, it said deadly incidents of sectarian violence, particularly in Sind and Punjab provinces, continued throughout 1997. In November, four US employees of Union Texas Petroleum and their Pakistani driver were murdered in Karachi when the vehicle in which they were riding was attacked, one mile from the US consulate, in Karachi.

In addition, five Iranian Air Force technicians were killed in September in Rawalpindi. According to press reports, some 200 people died during the year in Pakistan.

In Sri Lanka, it said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam showed no signs of abandoning their campaign to cripple the island nation's economy and target government officials.

In all, there were 304 acts of international terrorism in 1997, eight more than occurred during 1996, but one of the lowest annual total recorded since 1971. The number of casualties remained large but did not approach the high levels recorded during 1996.

In 1997, some 221 persons died and 693 were wounded in international terrorist attacks compared to 314 dead and 2912 wounded in 1996. Seven US citizens died and 21 were wounded last year compared with 23 dead and 510 wounded in 1996.

The report said that approximately one-third of the attacks were against US targets and most of those consisted of low-level bombings of multinational oil pipelines in Colombia. Terrorists there regarded the pipelines as US targets.

The report said countering the terrorist threat remained a high priority for the United States, which had developed a three-part policy to combat the problem. It ruled out any concession to deal with terrorists, bringing them to justice for their crimes and bring about isolation and pressure on states that sponsored and support terrorism to force them to change their behaviour.

UNI

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