Pak using terrorists as strategic tool against India: experts

Pakistan has, over past several decades, been using terrorists as a strategic tool against India to achieve its goals in Kashmir, several American experts have told a powerful Congressional panel, warning the US against mediating between the two nations on the issue.

Testifying before a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on "Afghanistan and Pakistan: Understanding and Engaging Regional Stakeholders," experts told lawmakers that this dangerous policy needs to be ended.

They also observed that such a policy now seems to have backfired as the same terrorists and extremists groups have gone against the Pakistani establishment, which is reflected in series of terrorist attacks in Lahore recently.

"Over the last many years Pakistan has been covertly supporting Kashmir terrorist groups -- now they're called Punjabi terrorist groups -- to harass India in Kashmir," said Wendy Chamberlin, president of the prestigious Middle East Institute and former US Ambassador to Pakistan.

"Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad are some of these groups. Indians regard them as just as much a terrorist group as al Qaeda, and certainly the horrific attack at Mumbai is evidence of that," said Chamberlin.

Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Heritage Foundation's Asia Studies Center, cautioned the US to avoid falling into the trap of directly mediating in the decades-old Kashmir issue.