Is a new conflict brewing in Kashmir?

January 16, 2013

Ahmed Rashid writes: For nearly a decade, despite constant tensions'"and even large-scale terrorist violence'"between Pakistan and India, there is one thing the two nuclear-armed states have kept largely intact: their 2003 cease-fire agreement in Kashmir.

Over the past week, however, that agreement has suddenly seemed in danger of unraveling, with alarming killings along the defacto border between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir and threats of further escalation by senior officials on both sides.

Though it has until now received little attention in the international press, this new confrontation poses a grave threat to the entire region.