Pakistan's Stark Warning

Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, last night defied intense international pressure to defuse the crisis in Kashmir when he used a nationwide speech to champion the cause of Islamic militants and warn that his army would "shed the last drop of blood" to defend his nation.

In a hard-hitting televised address, Gen Musharraf promised that Pakistan's armed forces would not start a war. But he added: "If war is thrust upon us, we will respond with full might."

Despite mounting international calls on Pakistan to curb Islamic militancy, the general offered no new steps to combat extremism. Instead, he gave his open support to the "liberation struggle" in Kashmir, which lies at the heart of the worsening military situation on the subcontinent.

"The entire nation is with the armed forces and will shed the last drop of their blood but will not allow any harm to come to the motherland," he said.

Although the Indian government will issue a formal response today, ministers indicated that Gen Musharraf's speech had angered them.

Hours before the speech, Tony Blair spoke to the general for 15 minutes by telephone to press him to reduce tension. The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, also warned that a devastating war on the subcontinent was now a possibility.

"It could all too easily spiral out of control into a conventional, then nuclear conflict of a kind we have never witnessed before," Mr Straw said, speaking in Berlin on his way to Islamabad where he will meet Gen Musharraf today.

In chilling terms he described the risks facing India and Pakistan: "Death, destruction, disease, economic collapse way beyond the theatre of war, affecting much of the Indian subcontinent and lasting for years."

Gen Musharraf has come under pressure to stop Pakistani fighters crossing into Kashmir over the line of control, the frontline dividing the Muslim-majority state.

India holds Pakistan directly responsible for militant attacks in Kashmir and has ordered Islamabad to halt its support or face war. In the past week the two-nuclear armed rivals have stepped up military preparations for war, culminating in two Pakistani ballistic missile tests over the weekend.

Reports in Pakistan had said that the general would announce new steps to curb Islamic extremism. There were suggestions that the state intelligence services might be ordered for the first time to break all links with militants and that anti-terrorist laws might be expanded.

Gen Musharraf again promised that no "terrorism" would be launched from Pakistani soil. He added in English: "Pakistan is doing nothing across the line of control." Instead, he underlined Pakistan's "moral, political and diplomatic support to the cause of Kashmir." "Pakistan will always support the Kashmir struggle for liberation," he added.

His words angered the Indian government which dismissed his claim that infiltration across the Kashmir frontline had stopped. "You can't take it at face value that there is no infiltration. There is," said Omar Abdullah, India's external affairs minister.

"A lot of his speech had the effect of angering us more than anything else," he added.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Hindu nationalist Indian prime minister, was "glued" to his television set during the speech, aides said. Indian officials were also angered by Gen Musharraf's reference to "Hindu terrorists" operating in Kashmir and the riot-hit western state of Gujarat.

Pakistani and Indian troops yesterday unleashed some of the heaviest shelling in days both in Kashmir and further south over the international border. Islamabad said six Pakistani civilians were killed and at least 16 wounded when Indian shells landed in the villages of Charwa and Thatti Kalan, close to the border. In India, a border security force soldier was killed and three others wounded by machine gun and mortar fire.