U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, currently on a tour of South Asian nations, has a critical mission: persuading India and Pakistan to end the standoff over the disputed region of Kashmir and avert a head-on military clash that could lead to the world's first nuclear war. There is, therefore, every reason to hope that the mission will succeed.
Tensions between the two nuclear-armed states rapidly increased following the Dec. 13 suicide attack on the Indian Parliament by a band of armed extremists that left 14 people dead, including five of the attackers. India has blamed the assault on Pakistan-backed Kashmiri secessionists, branding them "terrorists," and deployed more than half a million troops along the Kashmir border.
Pakistan, too, has mobilized an estimated 200,000 or more troops on the border. Reportedly the two countries have also deployed missiles targeted at each other and called up large numbers of reservists. Indian and Pakistani forces have continued to trade fire almost daily across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.