A threat of nonconventional war

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Pakistan's president indicated Monday he had been prepared to use nuclear arms against India earlier this year, but a spokesman later backed off the assertion, saying that wasn't what he meant when he spoke of nonconventional war.

In a speech to Pakistani Air Force veterans, President Pervez Musharraf said he personally sent messages to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee through visiting leaders that if Indian troops moved a single step across the disputed frontier, "they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan."

Musharraf's comments appeared to confirm fears voiced last winter that the world was close to witnessing its first bilateral nuclear war. But hours later, a top official said the mention of nonconventional war was not a reference to the use of nuclear weapons.

Musharraf meant the people of Pakistan together with the conventional army would "neutralize the enemy's offensive," said an army spokesman, Gen. Rashid Quereshi. "Nowhere did he say that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons at all."

The danger point came when India and Pakistan sent troops to their shared border after a deadly attack on the Indian Parliament last December. New Delhi blamed Islamabad for helping to mastermind the assault that killed 14 people, while Pakistan denied playing any part.

India also possesses nuclear arms, and the situation so worried Washington at the time -- just as Pakistan became a key ally in the war on terror -- that it warned Americans to leave India.

During the heightened tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors, the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi, Robert Blackwell, said there was a chance -- though a "rather small" one -- that the conflict between India and Pakistan could have led to nuclear war.

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