Cong. caution against joining 'Islam vs. West' fight

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 30. Accusing the Vajpayee Government of going ``overboard'' in offering assistance to the U.S. in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Congress today cautioned it against joining any fight that becomes ``Islam versus the West'' or ``Islam versus the rest.''

The U.S. has not asked the NDA Government for any help but the External Affairs and Defence Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, ``volunteered it suo motu,'' Mr. K. Natwar Singh, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Department of the AICC, told PTI.

``I don't think the U.S. needs India's help. They can use Pakistan soil, operate from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and they already have bases in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman,'' he said.

``What India has to be careful about is that this fight doesn't become Islam versus the West or Islam versus the rest. It is essential for the U.S. to carry the Islamic world with it and go for Islamic terrorists and narrow-minded Islamists. This is beginning to happen.''he added.

``The U.S. has now woken up to the threat of international terrorism,'' he said adding that two years back, when Mr. Vajpayee had asked the U.S. to declare Pakistan a ``terrorist state'' and put an end to cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, it did not oblige.

Mr. Singh said Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were assassinated by terrorists and 70,000 innocent people had been killed in J&K and Punjab in the last 15 years by terrorists who were trained in Pakistan and financed by it.

In the last five years in J&K, the Pakistan-backed Taliban and the Saudi dissent Osama bin Laden had been financing and giving information to terrorist outfits to ``attack India,'' he charged.

He said as soon as the present situation was brought under control, India should formally ask the U.S. to look at the cross- border terrorism in Kashmir through the Indian eyes and impress upon Pakistan to stop this scourge.

He also cautioned against ``certain elements'' in the Sangh Parivar seeking to turn the situation into a communal one, especially since the U.P. elections were not too far. ``I am glad the Prime Minister has taken a strong stand on this,'' he said.

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