Any attack will be met with a response, Pakistan warns India

Pakistan warned India on Thursday not to launch a strike against it and threatened to respond to any attack, but it also sought to defuse tension with its rival in the wake oflast month'sMumbai attacks.

Though the South Asian nuclear powers have engaged in tit-for-tat accusations in recent weeks, both sides have repeatedly said they hope to avoid conflict. But India has not ruled out the use of force in response to the Nov. 26 assault, which it blames on a Pakistan-based militant group.

"India should refrain from any surgical strike," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters Thursday in his hometown ofMultan in central Pakistan.

"It should not commit this mistake, but if it does, Pakistan will be compelled to respond."

The comments follow recent forays by Pakistani fighter aircraft over several of the country's major cities, though Qureshi noted the military has not mobilized its ground forces.

Pakistan has also accused Indian fighter jets of violating its airspace, a charge New Delhi denies.

'Prepare for the worst'

Despite the heightened tension, Qureshi said Pakistan wants peace with India, with which it has fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947.

"We should hope for the best but prepare for the worst," Qureshi said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani echoed the sentiments Thursday and urged world to put pressure on India to defuse the tension.

He also repeated Pakistan's demand that India provide evidence to support its claim the 10 gunmen who killed at least 164 people in Mumbai last month were Pakistani and had links to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

"Whenever we receive evidence, we will examine it and investigate it and we will share it with our people," Gilani said at the tomb of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in southern Pakistan, ahead of the first anniversary of her assassination, Dec. 27.

India has given Pakistan a letter from the lone surviving gunman involved in the Mumbai attacks, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, reportedly saying he and the nine others were Pakistani. He also asked to meet with Pakistani envoys, but newspapers in Pakistan reported Thursday the government has rejected the request because it has no record of Kasab as a Pakistani citizen.

"How can we give him consular access without having knowledge about his nationality?" the newspaper Dawn quoted the head of Pakistan's Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, saying.

India said it provided Pakistan with sufficient evidence and wants the government to crack down on Lashkar and other militants operating out of Pakistan.

Pakistan has arrested several senior members of the banned group and moved against a charity that India and others say is a front for Lashkar. But many in India are skeptical Pakistan will follow through on its crackdown against Lashkar, which was created in the 1980s with the help of Pakistan's intelligence service.