''There are credible links between Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed which claimed responsibility for the attack) and the Al-Qaida group of Osama bin Laden,'' said Omar Abdullah, India's junior minister for external affairs and son of Farooq Abdullah, elected chief minister of the Indian-held part of disputed Kashmir.

Indian Home Minister L. K. Advani, second from right, with Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, left, and G. C. Saxena, governor of India's troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir, walk outside the Legislative Council building in Srinagar, India, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2001. Advani visited the Legislative Assembly complex which was gutted down after suicide bombers exploded a car on Monday, claiming thirty-nine lives. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Omar Abdullah said India's intelligence agencies have documents signed by Bin Laden, suspected of ordering the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, and Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Azhar, a Pakistani national, was released from prison in Kashmir by Indian authorities in exchange for an Indian Airlines plane with 150 passengers and crew on board, which was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan in December 1999.

According to Omar Abdullah, the presence of 'jehadist' fighters from as many 16 Islamic countries in Kashmir was proof enough that militant groups operating in the state had links with the Al-Qaida which U.S. President George W Bush has vowed to dismantle.

On Monday, Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh delivered a letter from Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Bush saying there was ''understandable anger'' in India at the suicide attack in Srinagar.

According to police reports, three armed militants crashed through barricades set up in front of the state assembly complex in a car laden with explosives, which they set off using a remote device. They then set a part of the complex ablaze before being killed by security forces.

''It (the attack) comes a day after (Pakistan President Pervez) Musharraf announced that no terrorist groups were operating from Pakistan,'' Vajpayee complained in his letter, a copy of which was made available to newspersons here.

Vajpayee's statement may well reflect his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government's keenness to forge closer relations with the United States. Moreover, his call for U.S. action against Kashmiri groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed comes in the weeks after the Sep. 11 attacks, when Washington is trying to build a coalition against Bin Laden's network and to which New Delhi has given its full support.

During the Cold War years, Washington maintained close relations with Pakistan, which contests the possession of Kashmir and has fought three wars with India over it.

''Incidents of this kind raise questions for our security which as a democratically elected leader of India, I have to address in our supreme national interest. Pakistan must understand there is a limit to the patience of the people of India,'' Vajpayee warned in the letter.

Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, has said there is a distinction between ''freedom fighters seeking self- determination'' in Kashmir and terrorist organizations.

Vajpayee was among the first world leaders who offered unconditional support to U.S. forces now preparing to strike at Osama bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan, but he has so far received no assurance in return that Washington was prepared to take on 'jehadist' groups operating in Kashmir.

Instead, the United States has looked to Pakistan, its long- time ally that served as frontline state during the eighties when Washington financed a hugely successful covert action against Soviet troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Separatist political groups in Kashmir, led by the All-Party Hurriyet Conference (APHC), have condemned this week's suicide attacks but said they would continue unless ''the issue of Kashmir was solved permanently''.

''This will lead to peace and stability not only in India and Pakistan but also in Jammu and Kashmir,'' said a statement released by the APHC, which represents a dozen different groups based in Srinagar.

''Now that a thinking is developing world over to address the root causes of violence, India should also give up its hardline attitude and try to resolve the Kashmir issue,'' the APHC statement further said.

But India has shown no sign of relenting and last week ordered a nationwide crackdown on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) on the charge that it had links with the Al-Qaida and with the fundamentalist Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.

India's home minister, Lal Krishna Advani, said a crackdown of the SIMI and the arrest of hundreds of its workers was in the offing well before the Sep. 11 attacks.

Advani was confident that the U.S. led war on terrorism would eventually get to 'jehadist' camps located in Pakistan which, according to him, provide arms and training to militants in Kashmir.

''Phase two will include operations against cross-border terrorism in Kashmir,'' Advani told reporters.

Pakistan has consistently denied arming or militarily supporting the militants, but says it provides only moral and diplomatic backing for a bloody insurgency which has claimed some 50,000 lives since it first began 12 years ago.

''Even if India does not play a large role, we would like to see our battle against terrorism getting fortified by the developments. We will lend moral, diplomatic and logistics support to the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism,'' Advani said.

Copyright 2001 IPS - Inter Press Service

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