India spars with Pakistan

India and Pakistan imposed tit-for-tat sanctions on each other as the United States urged the nuclear rivals not to let brinkmanship tip their biggest military build-up in almost 15 years into war.

US officials engaged in intense telephone diplomacy to in an attempt to reconcile the two nations and defuse a stand-off that could complicate the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Washington did not want Pakistan to divert forces from its border with Afghanistan, where they have been watching out for bin Laden and his protectors. Mr Rumsfeld said America had "clearly made the interest we have in this subject known to both sides".

India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring Islamic militants fighting its rule in Kashmir, its only Muslim state, and has so far resisted pressure from Washington for talks with Islamabad to defuse the crisis.

Its sanctions, on diplomatic movements and flights in its airspace, are India's toughest against Islamabad since the two countries went to war in 1971 over Bangladesh's split from Pakistan.

But Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh attempted to calm fears of war by saying there was "no need for anyone to worry", adding that military leaders from both countries were in regular contact.

Tensions between the nuclear rivals have increased since a bloody 13 December attack on India's parliament. India blamed two Pakistanbased Islamic militant organisations and insisted that Pakistan crack down on both groups and their leaders.

Indian and Pakistani forces have had almost daily exchanges of fire across their volatile border in divided Kashmir, over which the two neighbours have fought two of their wars.

Villagers living along the frontier - which stretches 2,070 miles from Kashmir in the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea - have begun fleeing as both sides have moved extra troops and equipment, including fighter jets, tanks and artillery to forward bases.

Pakistan has put the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of the two groups India blames for the attack on Parliament, under house arrest. It has frozen funds of the other, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistan has also spoken against any deployment of nuclear weapons. Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Major- General Rashid Qureshi said: "These nuclear weapons are deterrents, which are not meant to be more than that. Their use is something I think one shouldn't even consider."

Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes, who earlier said India's missile systems were in position, said deployment of reinforcements along the border would be complete in three days.

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