India, Pak trading intelligence on terrorists at US prodding

Washington, May 21 (PTI) India and Pakistan have begun
trading intelligence on Islamic extremists, as a result of the
prodding by the US, paving the way for an unprecedented
cooperation between the two nuclear-armed South Asian nations.

The CIA arranged for New Delhi and Islamabad to share
information on Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group
blamed for last November's terrorist attack on Mumbai, the
Wall Street Journal reported citing US officials.

The two countries are also trading information on
Taliban commanders who are leading the insurgency against
Pakistan's government.

"America hopes that when India and Pakistan see that
they face a common threat in Pakistan based militant groups,"
the paper said and quoted US officials to say this could make
Islamabad put more focus on the battle at home.

"We have to satisfy the Mumbai question, and show
India that the threat is abating," the official involved in
developing Washington's South Asia strategy said.

India and Pakistan traded military threats across
their border in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, in which
terrorists left more than 170 people dead.

Intelligence sharing on Mumbai has led to a somewhat
more frequent exchange of information, US and Pakistani
officials said. India and Pakistan have shared "a lot" of
information with each other about the Mumbai attack, said an
official at Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.
PTI