Can cross-border terrorism end?

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">Probability Index (Pakistan): 2-3<br /><br />The reduction in cross-border terrorism from PoK is critically linked to the reduction of violence against unarmed civilians by security personnel in the Valley itself. <br /><br />Cross-border terrorism, or more accurately, terrorists acts initiated across the LoC, is merely one manifestation of a larger problem of terrorism confronting those in the Kashmir Valley as well as in other parts of Pakistan and India.<br /><br />The violence could be state-initiated as in the case of fundamentalists operating in Pakistan, or in the violence inflicted by Indian security personnel in the Valley. Both these forms of violence feed off each other. <br /><br />It is difficult to predict the nature of the response by para-military outfits in Pakistan and the ISI itself. Both President Musharraf and Lt. General Ehsan, the current ISI chief in Islamabad, have been at pains to point out that they themselves are primary targets for this kind of terrorism. <br /><br />They also point out that the intelligence services are fully under the control of the Pakistan army. It is an uncontested fact that rogue actions are not unknown in the ISI and its larger network of funded groups operating outside the formal jurisdiction of the ISI high-command. <br /><br />Then, there is the question of the rogue jehadi elements. It cannot be stated with any degree of conviction that militant groups plying across the LoC are fully responsive to the international and domestic compulsions of Musharraf''s government. <br /><br />If anything, terrorist actions by Taliban-Al Qaeda groups and the activities carried out by the Lashkar, the Jaish and their successor groups in the Kashmir armed struggle, reveal gross hostility against both the President and his ISI chief. <br /><br />The ability of those in power in Pakistan to dampen this terrorism is directly correlated to parallel reinforcing moves by those in power in India itself. A congruence of such initiatives could result in peace. <br /><br />The success of these fresh peace initiatives will depend essentially on how extensively the genuine representatives of the Kashmiri people in PoK and IoK are consulted, and how far both sides of the LoC are allowed by Pakistan and India to interact with each other to determine the direction of their common destinies. <br /><br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The writer is chief editor, publisher, Dawn</span></div> </div>