Pakistan used Bin Laden agents for Kashmir offensive: Expert

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Pakistan has employed Islamic fundamentalist proxies, including agents of Osama Bin Laden, to launch its current attack on India, a congressional researcher says.

Yosef Bodansky, who toured the area of fighting for the House Task Force on Counterterrorism, said Pakistan ordered the offensive in the Kashmir and is using proxies ranging from Arab guerrillas, Bin Laden agents to Afghan nationals in the incursion.

"These groups are all aligned with the Pakistani military and Pakistani artillery is providing them support," Bodansky said after he returned from a trip to the Kashmir where he said his helicopter came under Pakistani fire.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held talks with President Bill Clinton on the fighting in Kashmir on on Sunday. But a White House statement did not mention Islamabad's sponsorship of the attack along the Indian border.

On Friday, the Indian Express newspaper quoted commanders as saying that the military has pushed Pakistani invaders 12 kilometers [seven miles] toward the ceasefire line that divides the Indian- and Pakistan-controlled sectors of Kashmir.

"Their casualties are very high and we see bodies lying all over," the newspaper quoted Indian army chief Gen. V.P. Malik as saying.

Bodansky said the Indian army has to clear hundreds of bunkers from Pakistani irregulars along the so-called Line of Control. He said the mission is extremely dangerous as Pakistani maintains the high ground.

"The mission is to climb the mountains and take hill after hill," he said.