The US said it “expects” Pakistan to act against perpetrators of a deadly attack on an Indian air force base.
The state department’s John Kirby said Pakistan must target militant groups.
The United Jihad Council – a coalition of militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir – has claimed responsibility.
The attack on the Pathankot base near the Pakistani border is seen as an attempt to derail recent peace moves by Pakistan and India.
“The government of Pakistan has spoken very powerfully on this and it’s our expectation that they’ll treat this exactly the way they’ve said they would. We have been clear with the highest levels of the government of Pakistan that it must continue to target all militant groups,” Mr Kirby said.
Five militants and seven Indian soldiers have so far been killed during four days of fighting.
The army is still conducting clearing operations inside the 2,000 acre base.
Who are the UJC? The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan explains
The United Jihad Council was formed in 1994 to co-ordinate resources and plans to hit military targets in Indian Kashmir among more than a dozen groups based in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Those groups were widely seen as being brought together by Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency.
The UJC is led by Mohammad Salahuddin, the leader of the pro-Pakistan Hezbul Mujahideen group, the largest in the alliance. The leadership of most of these groups is based in Pakistan, and they have been largely dormant since the 2003 ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto boundary dividing Kashmir.
So the claim by the UJC to have carried out this latest attack is likely to strengthen the view that it was authorised by the Pakistani army to undermine Mr Modi’s recent peace overtures to Pakistan’s civilian government. The Pakistani military has been accused of sabotaging the civilian-led normalisation process with India on several occasions in the past.
The UJC could also be trying to remain relevant even after India strengthened the LoC to stop infiltration of militants from the Pakistani side.
On Monday evening, a senior security official told a press conference that all families living on the base were safe and “all strategic assets [helicopters, aircraft and other military hardware] were secured”.
Maj-Gen Dushyant Singh, from India’s elite National Security Guard, said it would take a “long time” to declare the base completely secure, because of its size and geography.
Meanwhile, police in Punjab’s Mohali district said they had arrested three men with illegal arms and recovered a Pakistani “SIM card” from them. It is not yet clear whether the men had any connection with the attack, police said.
The Pathankot assault started before dawn on Saturday when a group of gunmen – wearing Indian army uniforms – entered the residential quarters on the base.
Hours of heavy gunfire followed and a helicopter was seen firing at the facility on Sunday.
The attack is being seen as a blow to an apparent Indo-Pakistani peace initiative launched just days ago.
Hopes for a thaw in relations were raised after Mr Modi paid an unexpected visitto his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry and the US state department have condemned the attack.
Pathankot air force base is about 430km (270 miles) north of the Indian capital, Delhi, and is on the road linking Indian-administered Kashmir with the rest of the country.
Indian-administered Kashmir has seen a long-running insurgency against rule from Delhi, and Kashmir has been a flashpoint in relations between Pakistan and India for nearly 70 years since independence.(BBC News)
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35230184
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