India is bracing for more militancy in the battle-scarred region of Kashmir, believing that fighters now focused on resisting U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan will shift toward the Himalayan flash-point with Pakistan.
Some say increased violence recently along India's heavily militarized border with Pakistan proves that shift is already underway.
As a result, India is increasing use of drones, thermal sensors and foot patrols as it tries to catch out any battle-hardened militants moving through the forested mountains near the frontier. At the same time, Indian troops have increasingly been engaging in skirmishes with Pakistan's military.
U.S. officials and experts acknowledge there are valid concerns, though the U.S. government has not discussed such a risk publicly. The chief of its forces in the Pacific says the U.S. is increasingly discussing terrorist movements with countries in the region.
India has long accused Pakistan of arming and training militants who fight in Kashmir, a charge Pakistan vehemently denies. Pakistan has consistently said it gives the rebels only moral and diplomatic support.
The two countries regularly blame each other for starting skirmishes, but they agree the violence has escalated to its highest level killing dozens of troops and civilians on both sides since a 2003 cease-fire agreement. In August, the countries' troops engaged in fierce fighting almost daily after India said 20 militants along with Pakistani soldiers crossed the border and killed five Indian soldiers. Pakistan denied that, saying instead that Indian shelling killed two of its civilians.
A constant military presence by at least a half-million troops on the Indian side has nurtured a climate of fear and inspired decades of rebellion. The uprising and Indian crackdown has left 68,000 people dead. While most anti-India sentiment is now expressed in street protests, graffiti has started to appear on the streets of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, inviting foreign rebels with greetings of "Welcome Taliban."
Kashmir is an obvious next battleground for Islamic militants who sympathize with the Kashmiri rebellion, Indian army officials and international experts say.
Of particular concern is Lashkar-e-Taiba, a well-organized group based in Pakistan's Punjab province. The group is widely believed to have carried out the deadly 2008 attack in the Indian city of Mumbai and is believed to have historical ties to Pakistani intelligence.
This year's fighting between India and Pakistan has unusually extended southward from the Line of Control to border areas that are not disputed by India. And while Pakistani troops in the past would fire across the border to provide cover for infiltrating militants, such fire is now coming regardless of any rebels being present, according to police chief Ashok Prasad in Indian Kashmir.
There appears to be little appetite for a full-blown conflict within either government, and Pakistani officials dismissed the idea that they would want to raise border tensions by sending militants across into Kashmir.
Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif and India's Manmohan Singh agreed in September to work on reducing border hostilities.
But even as they spoke, their armies were lobbing mortar shells at each other. The next month, the fighting spread to southern border areas that had been largely peaceful for a decade, prompting officials on both sides to call it the most serious fighting in a decade.
Pakistan's new government has said it wants to ask the U.S. for help in resolving the conflict, but India balks at the idea of intervention in what it considers an internal and bilateral dispute.
Kashmiri politicians challenging India's sovereignty over the region accuse the Indian army of using Pakistani interference, infiltration and militancy to justify its continued military presence, and worry that the renewed violence will worsen the situation.
AP