Pak steps 'token', Indian military action possible: Stratfor

Terming the action taken by Islamabad against Lashkar-e-Taiba as "token", leading US think-tank Stratfor has said that the possibility of Indian military strikes against Pakistan is "very real" as New Delhi is "unconvinced".

Terming the action taken by Islamabad against Lashkar-e-Taiba as "token", leading US think-tank Stratfor has said that the possibility of Indian military strikes against Pakistan is "very real" as New Delhi is "unconvinced".

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Stratfor, in its analysis reports, has said that India is not likely to be satisfied with the banning of a couple of militant groups and a "few insincere" house arrests.

"Pakistan has taken some token measures against groups India asserts were responsible for the November attack in Mumbai, but India (and the US) remains unconvinced," it said, adding "The threat of an Indian military strike is very real. All available eyes need to watch for troop movements."

India says Laskar-e-Taiba carried out the Mumbai terror strikes, an assertion supported by Britain and other world powers, but Pakistan claims there was no evidence.

The think-tank noted that Pakistan historically has been an "economically weak, mismanaged and corrupt state" where the Pakistani military elite, "deeply entrenched in the economy, holds much of the country's wealth as well as a number of key assets in the corporate and real estate sectors."

"But just as in the wake of the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, India is not likely to be satisfied with the banning of a couple of militant groups and a few insincere house arrests. The diplomatic posturing continues, but the threat of war is palpable," it said.

Stratfor also said the same groups that were under the ISIs command and control several years earlier have increased their autonomy and spread their networks inside India.

"More importantly, Pakistan has more or less admitted that its military-intelligence establishment has lost control of many of these groups, leaving India and the United States to dwell over the frightening thought that rogue operations are being conducted by elements of the Pakistani security apparatus that no longer answer to the state," it said.

It also said the Mumbai attacks were carried out by die-hard militants who wanted to create a geopolitical crisis between India and Pakistan.

"The identities of the attackers reveal a strong link to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Kashmiri Islamist militant group whose roots lie in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, but whose weakened ties to the Pakistani state have drawn it closer to Pakistan's thriving al Qaeda network," it said.