Pakistan denies role, aids investigation

Pakistan scrambled yesterday to avoid a crisis with India over the terror attacks in Mumbai, sending an intelligence official to share data and countering Indian charges that "elements in Pakistan" were behind the carnage.

Clear Pakistani fingerprints on the attacks would endanger fragile peace talks between the nuclear-armed rivals and U.S. efforts to persuade Pakistan to focus on al-Qaida Taliban militants along the Afghan border.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted yesterday that such evidence would not be found.

"I am saying it clearly that Pakistan has nothing to do with this incident. Pakistan has no link with this act," Gilani said. "We condemn it. The whole nation condemns it."

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947. They remain at odds over the divided territory of Kashmir, and New Delhi has accused Pakistan of complicity in a string of terrorist acts on its soil.

The tension has eased in recent years, and the pro-Western government formed in Islamabad after February elections has made overtures toward its neighbor.

India's foreign minister yesterday ratcheted up the accusations over the well-planned attacks.

"According to preliminary information, some elements in Pakistan are responsible," Pranab Mukherjee said. "Proof cannot be disclosed at this time."

Indian Home Minister Jaiprakash Jaiswal said a captured gunman had been identified as a Pakistani.

Still, Mukherjee's comment suggested that militant groups based in Pakistan were suspected in the attack, rather than Pakistani authorities.

New Delhi's past complaints about Pakistan -- shared by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and some in Washington -- have centered on its Inter Services Intelligence agency.

Kashmiri militants as well as the Taliban have served as proxies for Pakistan to exert influence in India and Afghanistan in the past, and there are doubts that Pakistan's military, which controls the ISI, has abandoned that policy fully.

Pakistani leaders have defended the agency vigorously and complained that their country is being scape-goated for Western failures in Afghanistan. Still, they also have made moves to reform the ISI, including appointing a new chief in September.

The state of relations between Pakistan and India is vital for U.S. foreign policy in the region.

Incoming President-elect Barack Obama has said normalizing ties between the two South Asian countries will be a major plank of his broader campaign to stabilize Afghanistan.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called Singh yesterday and cautioned against falling into the "trap of militants" by launching into mutual recriminations.

"The president said the government will cooperate with India in exposing and apprehending the culprits and the masterminds behind the attack," Zardari's office said in a statement.

Zardari points to the loss of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to a gun-and-bomb attack last December to burnish his anti-terrorist credentials.