Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com

NEW DELHI — A bloody ambush on the Indian side of the line of control in the region over which India and Pakistan have been quarreling for decades shows not only the fragility of ceasefires but the inroads of terrorism from the Middle East across South and Southeast Asia.

Perhaps Koreans should be thankful that Northeast Asia seems so safe and secure, not counting nuclear and missile tests, the odd lightning strike and, oh yes, all that boring rhetoric.

The attack here, in which five Indian soldiers were killed, is a reminder of forays that have gone on, one way or another, over the line between the two Koreas since the signing of the truce that ended the Korean War on July 27, 1953. Like the demilitarized zone, and the no-go line in the Yellow Sea, the division between India and Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region is unacceptable to either side but realistically here to stay.

As on the Korean Peninsula, only the outbreak of a war that nobody wants could upset the status quo, and even that might fail to nudge one side or another from long held positions.

One great difference between the standoff on the Korean peninsula and the one in Kashmir, however, is terrorism provoked by Al Qaida and possibly the Taliban too.

Frankly I haven’t heard of Al Qaida people infiltrating South Korea or aligning themselves with North Korea against the South. Northeast Asia seems a little beyond the range of an organization whose tendrils extend as far as the Muslim regions of the large island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines and Muslim-dominated Indonesia but do not seem to have advanced northward.

Terrorism inspired by Al Qaida is deeply implanted in western Pakistan, along the border with Afghanistan, where the U.S. wipes out bad guys along with civilians in drone strikes, but interestingly the U.S. embassy in Islamabad is not one of those closed down in the final days of Muslim holidays this week for fear of an Al Qaida attack.

Maybe whoever wrote that intercepted message that provoked all the other embassy closures forgot to include Pakistan or maybe Al Qaida leaders are on such good terms with certain Pakistani military people that they figured, let’s skip that one.

None of which means the terrorists are not alive and active and colluding with the Pakistani military in attacks elsewhere, especially across the line with India in Kashmir. Indian army intelligence officers are absolutely convinced terrorists and Pakistan soldiers worked together to stage the ambush against Indian troops on patrol in rugged hills on the Indian side of the line.

Pakistan insists its military people had nothing to do with the slaughter and, for the sake of flagging effort at dialogue with Pakistan, India’s defense minister, A. K. Antony, is blaming the attack on the terrorists, not the Pakistan army.

That kind of talk, though, fails to let the Pakistan army completely off the hook. Rather, the Indians are saying Pakistan military people have trained the terrorists and given them safe harbor.

Pakistan retorts that Indian forces have been infiltrating across the line, killing the odd Pakistani in isolated episodes. From all the charges and counter-charges, it’s impossible to know what’s really going on.

The incident, however, bears another parallel between North and South Korea when one considers its potential impact on rapprochement. India’s long-entrenched Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who just returned to power after elections in June, were supposed to meet in New York during the session of the U.N. General Assembly next month, but now Indian politicos are demanding cancellation of the talks.

The fact that they were ever going to meet at all, of course, puts the prospect of India-Pakistan reconciliation far above that of North-South Korean rapprochement. India and Pakistan have diplomatic missions in each other’s capitals and trade goes on across the long border or through entrepot ports such as Dubai.

Quite aside from Kashmir, however, Indians are convinced of complicity in Pakistan in incidents such as the terrorist attack that killed upwards of 170 people in Mumbai in 2008. And, lest we forget, India and Pakistan are proud members of the global “nuclear club,” capable of wiping out millions of one another’s people in a single strike.

Maybe we should be thankful the Al Qaida security threat was not enough to shut the American embassies in either India or Pakistan. The idea is, these places are safe havens. Let the terrorists do their thing far away from the capitals of either country.

Or could it be that the terrorists are emboldened by their success in shutting down so many other embassies — proof of the fear they strike in the hearts of American diplomats and many others?

With U.S. forces out of Iraq and pulling out of Afghanistan, the fear here is it’s open season for terrorists in cahoots with their friends in high places.

  A.K. Antony, Kashmir, Nawaz Sharif, On the global terror front: But the U.S. embassies are open in India and Pakistan, Yellow Sea