NEW DELHI, Nov 6 (AFP)
The new military regime in Pakistan provides a no-win scenario for New Delhi, Indian army chief General V.P. Malik said in comments published Saturday.
Malik said circumstances would force his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf, who ousted Nawaz Sharif�s government last month and declared himself chief executive, to further strain relations with arch rival India.
�The present ruler of Pakistan is facing a problem of legitimacy both at home and abroad,� the Indian Express daily quoted Malik as saying.
And in order to gain that legitimacy, Musharraf has to revive the economy and redeem the honour of the military, he said in a military lecture on Friday.
�If he fails, then frustration would set in and it could manifest itself in something not good for us.
�And if he succeeds, they could get over-confident and then again this could manifest itself in something not good for us,� Malik said in his lecture on the May-July conflict between Indian troops and Pakistan-backed guerrillas in the Kargil sector of disputed Kashmir.
The general also said the change of guard in Islamabad had united various Islamic militant groups in Pakistan with the military.
�More than collusion and nexus, now there is a fusion between the army and mujahedeen (freedom fighters) in Pakistan and this is apparent in post-Kargil proxy war scenario,� he said.
The Indian army chief also said New Delhi was concerned by mushrooming Islamic religious schools in Pakistan.
�As long as they remain institutions of learning, there is no problem. But they are becoming schools of military and weapons training, sectarian hatred and breeding grounds of terrorism,� Malik said.
KAVKAZ, Russia, Nov 6 (AFP)
Thousands more terrified refugees fled the Russian bombing of war-torn Chechnya Friday, as federal artillery pounded the outskirts of Sernovodsk, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the capital Grozny, where only civilians remained.
There was chaos at the border, even though soldiers had begun to let the refugees move through freely.
A constant stream of cars and mini-buses packed with refugees crossed the frontier from Chechnya into the neighbouring Russian republic of Ingushetia, where border guards said they had almost stopped counting.
Residents of Sernovodsk told AFP that the federal forces continued intermittent artillery fire on the outskirts of the town, claiming several civilian victims, even though Chechen fighters had left.
The Russian troops had encircled the town and were awaiting an order to �clean it up,� perhaps not realizing that the fighters were long gone, residents said.
Most of the townsfolk had left Sernovodsk for Ingushetia, but some 20 percent stayed behind.
By late afternoon Friday, some 3,000 Chechens had crossed the border, according to Ingush officials, but at least as many waited in the bitter cold on the other side, with their numbers swelling every hour.
Moscow bowed to world pressure Thursday and opened the border after sealing it tight for 10 days and then allowing through only a trickle at a time, stranding thousands of desperate civilians in the war zone.
But the massive human exodus continued as Russian warplanes and artillery pounded �rebel positions� across the breakaway republic, causing death and devastation among populated areas, according to the accounts of Chechens who have fled.
�I have a home. I have a motherland. Why do I have to live in the open then? Why are they killing my loved ones? Why are we condemned in this way?� Lisa, 52, wailed.
Marieta, 42, a doctor from Grozny, said Russian forces had dropped bombs on the children�s hospital where she worked in the Chechen capital, forcing her to pack up and leave the wrecked city.
�They bombed the Children�s Hospital Number Two. We were lucky. One day before we had moved the children out. They are bombing everywhere,� she told AFP.
Russia on Friday rejected world pressure to launch peace talks with Chechnya by suggesting that its push against the separatist republic could spill over into next year.
The outskirts of Grozny again rumbled from artillery and rocket fire as Russia�s air campaign against the separatist state entered its third month.
And while thousands of troops massed on the hills surrounding the rebel capital with the city clearly in sight, leaders in Moscow remained split over whether to issue the final order for soldiers to go in.
The rebels meanwhile dug trenches across the deserted city to prepare for a bloody street battle similar to the one that killed thousands when the Russians invaded Grozny during the 1994-96 war.
Yet instead of launching peace talks as counseled by a growing chorus of western leaders, a senior Russian commander said nothing will stop Moscow from finishing off its assignment of crushing the �terrorists� of Chechnya.
�We expect to end the main part of the military operation by the end of the year. But we do not exclude that it can last longer should we fail to interrupt the flow of money, arms and soldiers to the terrorists,� General Valery Manilov, the deputy chief of staff, told a press briefing.
Manilov said 162 Russian soldiers and 3,500 Chechen gunmen had been killed since Moscow first ordered an air assault on the republic on September 5.
Chechen officials meanwhile said some 3,200 civilians had been killed by indiscriminate Russian bombing.
In Sernovodsk, Indris Elbukayev, in charge of a collective farm, told AFP: �We went to see the Russians to tell them there were no Islamic fighters left among us.�
He went on: �The colonel told me he had seen two armed men in a house in the suburbs.
�We went to flush them out. No-one there. When we came out of the house, Russian soldiers started to shoot at us. One of our men was hit in the head.�
When Elbukayev went to see the colonel again, he was told that �coordination was not very good� among the Russian soldiers.
Nearly 200,000 people have fled the fighting into neighboring regions of Russia, most into Ingushetia, swamping the tiny republic, which has a population of only 340,000.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which led a UN team this week to the border areas around the war zone to evaluate the humanitarian crisis, has warned that another 120,000 to 150,000 refugees could join them.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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