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India weighs response to attack on Parliament©Associated PressDecember 18, 2001 NEW DELHI, India -- With their armies on high alert, India said Monday it was preparing to respond to a suicide attack on Parliament that it blames on Pakistan. India has said Thursday's operation was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency and carried out by five Pakistanis. Thirteen people were killed in the raid, including the attackers. India is considering a military as well as political response, including bombing terrorist training camps it alleges are scattered across Pakistan. The Cabinet convened a security meeting Monday, and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh met with reporters afterward. Asked about Pakistan having put its army on high alert, he said, "The government is fully aware of this. We are alert." The United States has urged the rival neighbors to exercise restraint, with Secretary of State Colin Powell saying the situation "has the potential of becoming very dangerous." India says the attack on Parliament was planned by Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Islamic groups fighting to separate the mostly Muslim region of Kashmir from India, and accuses the Pakistani intelligence agency of involvement. In New Delhi on Monday, security agencies arrested three people allegedly involved in the conspiracy to attack Parliament. Their nationalities were not immediately available. Authorities also found at least 77 pounds of the explosives their hideout -- enough to blow up 35 airliners, security experts said. Pakistan's information secretary, Anwar Mahmood, said his country would act on any credible proof that the Jaish-e-Mohammed was involved. But he dismissed India's claim of Pakistani government involvement. "The blame game must end," the government spokesman was quoted as saying by Pakistan's official news agency. "Pakistan expects India to look into the matter in a dispassionate manner." India's home minister, Lal Krishna Advani, suggested India would be within its rights to send troops across the border to chase Islamic guerrillas. "If one country attacks its neighbor or sends its people to indulge in sabotage and killings, hot pursuit is regarded as a legitimate response," he told Star News television late Sunday. The suicide attack on Parliament prompted calls in India for the country to emulate the U.S. attacks against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network in Afghanistan.
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