Pakistan's foreign secretary is 'hopeful of a positive outcome'

India and Pakistan have begun their first high-level talks since the devastating attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) at the end of 2008.

On the eve of the talks the two countries exchanged terse allegations over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Indian border guards in Kashmir said they came under fire from Pakistan on Wednesday, a claim denied by Islamabad.

The conflicting claims coincided with the arrival of the Pakistani foreign secretary in Delhi for the talks.

Thursday's meetings are the first between the two nuclear-armed neighbours since the Mumbai attacks 15 months ago.

India says those attacks were carried out by Pakistan-based militants.

Decades of hostility

Wednesday's shooting in the south of Indian-administered Kashmir is alleged to have taken place in the Samba area.

"The firing from across the border started early morning. A BSF [Border Security Force] personnel was injured," Vinod Sharma, a spokesman for the border guards, told Reuters news agency.

Hundreds of thousands of troops are based in Kashmir

But Nadeem Raza, a spokesman for Pakistan's paramilitary Rangers, told Reuters: "Our troops were not involved in any firing. There may be some problem on their own side."

The Kashmir dispute has been at the centre of decades of hostility between India and Pakistan and the cause of two of their three wars since independence from British rule in 1947.

Thousands of Indian troops are fighting a two decade-old separatist insurgency in Kashmir.

There has been a spate of clashes along the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

India said on Tuesday that three of its soldiers had been killed fighting militants north of Srinagar. Officials say at least two militants were also killed.

The BBC's Altaf Hussain in Srinagar says these are the highest casualties suffered by Indian forces in an operation in the disputed territory so far this year.

Agenda issues

Analysts say the peace talks in Delhi are being resumed under pressure from the US, but few experts expect any major breakthroughs.

"It is good to be back," Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir told reporters as he arrived at Delhi airport.

SOUTIK BISWAS'S INDIA India and Pakistan are not two ordinary sparring neighbours - they are nuclear-armed estranged siblings with a history of three wars, brinkmanship and endless sniping Read Soutik's blog

"I have come here to bridge the differences [and] I am hopeful of a positive outcome."

Mr Bashir - who met Kashmiri separatist leaders in India on Wednesday - is leading a five-member delegation and will meet his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao for closed-door talks.

Correspondents say the meeting could eventually pave the way for the resumption of the formal peace process broken off after the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 174 people were killed, nine of them gunmen.

But the two sides have very different views of what should be on the agenda during the talks.

Pakistan wants to discuss a range of issues including Kashmir, which both countries claim in its entirety. India, however, says these are "talks about talks" and there is only one item to talk about - terrorism.

If the two sides agree a date to meet again soon, that in itself will be seen as a small achievement.

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The Taliban have proved themselves to be formidable adversaries

Pakistan's security forces appear to have achieved their main objective in Swat with the capture of its administrative seat of Mingora.

That region and the rest of the Malakand division now seem to be under the control of the Pakistan army.

Some fighting is still going on in the mountainous rural areas - especially the Peochar valley, the militants' main stronghold.

Everyone on the list of most wanted militants - from Osama Bin Laden onwards - is said to be hiding in that area.

Dissent and duplicity

Swat's turn in the limelight may be entering its final phase, in fact some senior government officials believe it is already over.

The army now seems to be preparing itself for a new front as clashes erupt across the tribal region of Waziristan.

Baitullah Mehsud, supreme leader of the militant alliance Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), now awaits them.

Baitullah Mehsud profile

As a prelude to that operation, Pakistan's intelligence agencies have been whittling away at his influence.

Increasingly he is faced with dissent and duplicity in his South Waziristan base.

A rival clan led by powerful pro-government leader, Turkistan Bittani, has been making in-roads at his expense.

He is aided by Qari Zainuddin Mehsud, leader of the Abdullah Mehsud group in Waziristan.

Until his death, Abdullah Mehsud was, along with Baitullah, the main Taliban commander among the Mehsud tribe.

Some argue he had an even higher profile and stronger relationship with al-Qaeda than his namesake and that he posed a greater threat.

Abdullah Mehsud was killed in Baluchistan's Zhob district in July 2007 following a fire fight with security forces.

Greater authority

Later, reports surfaced that information about his whereabouts had been leaked on Baitullah's orders.

The army says that the Taliban are losing territory

The two men were known to have developed serious differences - especially concerning Baitullah's focus on Pakistan.

Another militant, Abdullah's cousin Qari Zain, has clearly said that his aim is to kill the TTP head.

In addition, Baitullah Mehsud's ersthwhile allies, Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, appear intent on sitting the latest fighting out on the sidelines.

They are the only two Pakistan Taliban commanders of similar if not greater authority and could have been powerful allies.

So Baitullah Mehsud now appears not only surrounded by the army but also running out of allies.

See a map of the region

The question then is what will happen to the Taliban in Pakistan if he is no longer in charge?

Many people believe the TTP may fracture and the organisation could end up being destroyed.

But there are other militant leaders such as Zulfiqar Mehsud - also known as Hakimullah Mehsud - waiting in the wings.

They are not connected with the TTP - an organisation widely thought not to represent all the Taliban in Pakistan.

Zulfiqar Mehsud last week told the BBC that two separate attacks in Lahore which killed 10 people were carried out by the Taliban in response to the army's operation in the Swat valley. He is also thought to be behind recent attacks on supply convoys bound for Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Recurring pattern

As far as the Pakistani Taliban's future is concerned in the event of Baitullah Mehsud's demise, past events provide an interesting barometer reading of what may lie ahead.

More displacement could drive some people into the Taliban's arms

One has only to look at what has happened recently in the tribal areas when a senior militant leader was killed or when the militants were said to have been defeated.

The most famous example is of Nek Mohammad.

He was the man who launched the Taliban movement as a Pakistani phenomenon.

Starting out with a group of about 20 like-minded men in Waziristan in 2003, Nek Mohammad soon became the main front man for al-Qaeda's militants.

During this time he fought several battles with the Pakistan army before eventually signing a peace deal with them.

But that was not to last and soon the army and militants were at war once again.

His death in a drone attack in July 2004 was hailed as a "great victory" by the army who claimed to have "broken the back of the militants".

At that time he was estimated to have had about 5,000 followers.

Today, there are more than a dozen militant leaders who command at least that number of men and a few who have several times more.

The militants control territory throughout North West Frontier Province and every operation by the army has ultimately ended with them losing territory.

In fact, there is a recurring pattern to the army's offensives.

Troops nearly always tend to be deployed following international claims that the area in question is newly under al-Qaeda's control and poses a threat to the country's nuclear arsenal.

The fighting often ends up leaving a largely aggravated population at the mercy of those from whom they were being rescued.

This in turn can create resentment against the government - if only a handful out of the 2.5 million people forced to leave Swat in the most recent fighting end up joining the Taliban, the militants would still receive hundreds of new recruits into their ranks.

For many people in the war-hit north-west there is increasingly only one choice, join the Taliban or leave their ancestral lands.

Tactics

That is maybe one reason why almost every family in Taliban-dominated areas has a member in the militant forces.

Fighting between the army and the Taliban has caused destruction in Swat

The young glamourise the militants and that - combined with the tribal concept of badal, or an eye for an eye - becomes binding on each family who loses a member in the war.

Every time the army drops a bomb or fires a bullet in the north-west it is in danger of stirring up resentment among some civilians which will create new enemies in future years.

The militants in Swat may well lose the battle over the coming days and the future of Baitullah Mehsud appears increasingly uncertain.

But unless the Pakistani government - and indirectly the international community - changes its tactics, the Taliban can still win the war.

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Thousands of people are streaming into camps seeking refuge from the conflict between Pakistan's army and Taleban rebels in the country's north-west.

Most of the civilians come from Mingora, the main city in the Swat valley, where a curfew was temporarily lifted to allow residents to leave.

Reports say the road out of Mingora is filled with buses and trucks, each one overcrowded, with people on the roofs.

The UN says 830,000 people have left their homes within the past month.

The total number of people internally displaced within Pakistan over the past 12 months has risen to around 1.3m.

See a map of the region

An estimated 80,000 of those are now living in camps run by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), based around the city of Mardan.

Pakistan's Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, has described the situation as the country's worst refugee crisis since the bloody partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 at the end of colonial rule.

'No hope'

The army has blockaded the town of Mingora, the administrative hub of the Swat valley, previously a popular tourist and ski resort but in recent years the focus of a Taleban uprising.

Owen Bennett-Jones, Islamabad There are currently three separate large-scale military offensives in the north-west of Pakistan. People leaving the affected areas are terrified by the scale of the army action. Stories are circulating about the terrible decisions war imposes. One family in Swat for example is said to have left behind a son who could not be moved because he is a polio victim. They gave him a supply of bread and water and left him on his own as they headed for safety. For the moment public opinion is with the army. Those who have actually lived under the Taleban held areas have been particularly disgusted by the floggings and the beheadings. But the generals know the public mood could change if there are too many civilian casualties. Schoolgirl's harrowing escape Pakistan conflict map

The first wave of people left Mingora a week ago, and food and other vital supplies are now scarce inside the city, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad.

But the army remains reluctant to engage in street-to-street combat with militants while large numbers of civilians remain in Mingora, she adds, and authorities are keen to allow as many civilians as possible to leave the city.

After days under curfew and bitter fighting between government troops and rebels, buses were laid on to ferry to safety some of the 150,000 civilians thought to remain inside Mingora.

Local official Arshad Khan told the AFP news agency people were leaving their homes "in large numbers".

The road from the southern edge of the conflict zone towards Mandar was clogged with buses, trucks, motorbikes and rickshaws throughout Friday. A BBC correspondent near Mandar, Abdul Hasan Kakar, estimated that about 400 trucks and buses headed towards the city this morning.

Residents were angry both at the Taleban and the security forces, our correspondent said, with the Taleban reported still to be in control of the streets of Mingora and locals accusing both sides of "atrocities" against civilians.

One man, identified only as Ibrahim, told AFP the constant bombing and shelling barrage had left him with "no hope for life".

"We are going to Mardan. We are just going to sit under a tree somewhere. We just want some safety for our children," he said.

Aid call

Up to 15,000 troops have now been deployed in the Swat valley and neighbouring areas to take on some 5,000 militants.

The army said on Friday that it killed 55 militants across Swat over the previous 24 hours, with three Pakistani security personnel also killed.

In a statement, the army also said a leading Taleban commander, Dawa Noor, identified as an instigator of the Taleban's recent move into Buner, south of Swat, was among those killed.

People have been getting used to new living conditions

But a Taleban spokesman, Muslim Khan, says the militants have killed at least 37 soldiers in fighting since Wednesday, with just three of their fighters killed.

The BBC's Ilyas Khan, in Karachi, says independent confirmation of these claims is difficult as the phone system across Swat is down and tens of thousands of mobile phones have gone dead because of a lack of electricity.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres has warned that the plight of displaced people could spark further conflict.

The UN has called for a massive and urgent injection of emergency humanitarian aid.

The Pakistani government began its offensive in the Swat valley in late April.

In February, it had signed a peace agreement with the Taleban there, allowing Sharia law to be enforced - a move sharply criticised by Washington.

But the militants then expanded into neighbouring districts, prompting the government to abandon the peace deal.

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