New Delhi, December 16
The Vajpayee government is understood to be exploring various options to take Pakistan to task for the December 13 terrorist attack on Parliament as its secret service ISI has been found involved in planning and executing the attack.

The options include building up a diplomatic case against Pakistan in the international community and the United Nations and also launching surgical strikes on the terrorist-training camps in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), well-placed sources said today.

The Vajpayee government would soon be stepping up its diplomatic offensive against Pakistan — which may well cast a shadow over the SAARC summit scheduled to take place in Kathmandu in less than three weeks from now.

A key American official, Mr Francis Taylor, Coordinator of counter-terrorism wing of the State Department is scheduled to visit India in the first week of January. Mr Taylor, sources said, is expected to arrive here with an inter-agency team.

This would be followed by Union Home Minister L.K. Advani’s visit to the USA, which is expected to take place in the second or third week of January. Mr Advani would be visiting the USA on the invitation of their Attorney-General and the visit would be of immense strategic significance.

New Delhi is understood to have conveyed to Washington — in the wake of the December 13 attack on Parliament — that India deserved the right to retaliate in the manner it deemed fit and, significantly, Washington has agreed with it. The Bush administration’s nodding in agreement with India on its right to retaliate against the terrorist attack on Parliament marks an important departure from Washington’s stand taken on at least two occasions earlier when it had urged India to exercise restraint. The two incidents were the Kargil crisis and the October 1 terrorist attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.

The government is also expected to rely on the newly introduced but as yet untested Resolution number 1373 of the United Nations Security Council which prohibits a state from promoting terrorism in any manner. Under this resolution, which came into force on September 28 in the wake of terror attacks on America, the UN can sanction use of force against an erring state which continues to violate the spirit of this resolution.

Meanwhile, sources pointed out that the December 13 attack on Parliament could be a direct fallout of the changed political situation and Islamabad did not like Afghanistan’s ministers-designate making a beeline to India.