Taliban threatens to attack India

A new Pakistani Taliban group behind this week's devastating suicide bombing on the Pakistani-Indian border yesterday said the attack was as much aimed at India as Pakistan, suggesting that Indian targets might be next.At least 57 Pakistanis were killed during a popular flag-lowering ceremony on Sunday when a bomber tried to get as close as possible to the border in a possible attempt to cause casualties on the Indian side as well.Ehsanullah Ehsan, a prominent militant and spokesman for the group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Ahrar (TTP-JA), said he had warned Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that attacks in India were in the pipeline.

"I told him that his hands are red with the blood of Kashmiri mujahideen and innocent people of Gujarat for which he would have to pay the price," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.He earlier tweeted in English: "You (Modi) are the killer of hundreds of Muslims. We wl (will) take the revenge of innocent people of Kashmir and Gugrat" (sic). An Indian intelligence official said the account appeared genuine.TTP-JA has announced its support for the Middle Eastern group Islamic State, whose belligerent anti-Western ideology has begun to inspire militants across South Asia.On Tuesday, India's navy withdrew two warships from the eastern port of Kolkata after intelligence agencies warned of an attack on the port and the city between November 4 and 7.

Meanwhile, the US department of defense, in its latest six-monthly report on Afghanistan, says Pakistan uses its militants as "proxy forces to hedge against the loss of influence in Afghanistan and to counter India's superior military".The 100-page report also noted that the Indian consulate in Herat was attacked by heavily armed militants three days before the swearing in of Narendra Modi.This is not the first time the US has pointed fingers at Pakistan's support of terrorism. Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, had told the US Congress in his final interview that the Haqqani network and Afghan Taliban were a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's ISI and army, ruining his relations with the then Pakistan army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.In 2008, the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul too was carried out by ISI-sponsored terrorists, which was confirmed by US intelligence to the then national security adviser M K Narayanan.