ASIA!

HIGH NOON ON THE SUB-CONTINENT?

He is the national no one wants to claim. Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist responsible to survive the Mumbai bombings wrote a confessional that he and the others were Pakistani. Islamabad denies that he is one of its own.

With accusations and counter-accusations flying back and forth between India and Pakistan, could a fallout be imminent?

Well, here is what has been happening.

The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has made what is his seventh trip to Pakistan, in just over 14 months. It is also his second after the Mumbai attacks. He has met both Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of its controversial Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

Pakistan's National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani has also been summoned to Washington for meetings with top US officials.

According to a US Defense Department statement, "The near-term danger is that war might erupt... A second-order effect is that the dispute may cause Pakistan to concentrate on its border with Kashmir and lessen its commitment to solving the problem of safe havens in the west."

As charges from both sides of the Kashmiri divide fly, Pakistan is warning India not to attack. Regional players including Iran is trying to mediate for peace.