Kashmir terror group warning

By CNN's New Delhi Bureau Chief
Satinder Bindra

NEW DELHI (CNN) -- The radical Kashmiri group Jaish-e-Mohammed is suspending operations in the rest of India in order to focus on freeing Kashmir from India.

Jaish-e-Mohammed is one of two groups blamed by the Indian government for an attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13 that left 14 people dead.

The group has also been banned by Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf.

"We will now exclusively concentrate activities in Ladakh, Jammu-Kashmir for the freedom of the state," the group said in a statement Monday.

The statement was signed by Mohammed Shamsuddin-Haider, who identified himself a spokesman for the military wing of Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The statement said the group has enough arms and ammunition to fight Indian forces for five years and intends to continue its suicide attacks against Indian military installations.

IN-DEPTH India-Pakistan standoff

India blames the Jaish-e-Mohammed and another radical group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, for the attack on its Parliament.

India also suggests Pakistan's complicity in the attack, a claim Islamabad rejects.

As a result, the two nuclear-enabled neighbors have massed almost 1 million troops along their common border.

On January 12, Pakistan's Musharraf banned both groups and ordered a crackdown on their members and seizure of their bank accounts.

But India wants to see more of what it terms "concrete action" from Pakistan before it starts withdrawing troops from the border.

India says Pakistan must stop terrorists from crossing the "Line of Control" that divides the disputed region of Kashmir and fomenting terrorist violence there.

It says that only "sustained and irreversible steps in this direction will create a conducive environment for the resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan."

Recent peace proposals talks by Pakistan have been firmly rejected, with India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee last month calling on Islamabad to vacate the part of Kashmir it controls before any talks could be held.

Although India has subsequently soften that stance, Vajpayee has ruled out suggestions the current Line of Control in Kashmir could one day become an international border between the two nations.

Militants in the Kashmir territory have battled Indian rule there for about 12 years with estimates of the death toll varying from 33,000 to 80,000 people.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over Kashmir.