Pakistan Daily Times wrote:ISLAMABAD: The heads of the ruling coalition, sans PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, are scheduled to meet today (Wednesday) to remove their differences and thrash out a strategy to fight terrorism. Sources within the government said that the meeting seeks to remove differences that have arisen within the coalition, especially those concerning the paramilitary operation the PPP-led government launched in the Tribal Areas. “We will demand the government withdraw from the so-called war on terror,” JUI-F Secretary General Ghafoor Haideri told Daily Times. PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooq said the party would press the government for the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf. ANP Information Secretary Zahid Khan said his party would give input on how to maintain law and order. Sources said that Gilani and Zardari would also attempt to convince the PML-N to rejoin the federal cabinet and that the formula for distribution of slots of chairpersons of standing committees would be finalised at the meeting.

The Bush administration plans to shift nearly $230 million in aid to Pakistan from counterterrorism programs to upgrading that country’s aging F-16 attack planes, which Pakistan prizes more for their contribution to its military rivalry with India than for fighting insurgents along its Afghan border.

Some members of Congress have greeted the proposal with dismay and anger, and may block the move. Lawmakers and their aides say that F-16s do not help the counterterrorism campaign and defy the administration’s urgings that Pakistan increase pressure on fighters of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in its tribal areas.

The timing of the action caught lawmakers off guard, prompting some of them to suspect that the deal was meant to curry favor with the new Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, who will meet with President Bush in Washington next week, and to ease tensions over the 11 members of the Pakistani paramilitary forces killed in an American airstrike along the Afghan border last month.

The financing for the F-16s would represent more than two-thirds of the $300 million that Pakistan will receive this year in American military financing for equipment and training.

Last year, Congress specified that those funds be used for law enforcement or counterterrorism. Pakistan’s military has rarely used its current fleet of F-16s, which were built in the 1980s, for close-air support of counterterrorism missions, largely because the risks of civilian casualties would inflame anti-government sentiments in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

State Department officials say the upgrades would greatly enhance the F-16s’ ability to strike insurgents accurately, while reducing the risk to civilians. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Congress was weighing the plan, said the timing was driven by deadlines of the American contractor, Lockheed Martin.

Having the United States pay for the upgrades instead of Pakistan would also free up cash that Pakistan’s government could use to help offset rising fuel and food costs, which have contributed to an economic crisis there, the State Department officials said.

Under the original plan sent to Congress in April, the administration intended to use up to $226.5 million of the aid to refurbish two of Pakistan’s P-3 maritime patrol planes, buy it new airfield navigation aids and overhaul its troubled fleet of Cobra attack helicopters. The State Department notified Congress last week that the administration had changed its mind and would apply the funds to the F-16s.

Lawmakers immediately bridled at the shift, questioning whether the counterterrorism money could be spent more effectively. “We need to know if this is the best way to help Pakistan combat Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who heads the appropriations subcommittee on State Department and foreign operations, said in a statement.

Representative Nita M. Lowey, a New York Democrat who heads the House appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, said in a statement, “It is incumbent on the State Department and Pakistan to demonstrate clearly how these F-16s would be used to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in order to get Congressional support.”

In a two-page notification to Congress, the State Department said that upgrading the avionics, targeting and radar systems of Pakistan’s older F-16s would “increase the survivability of the aircraft in a hostile environment” and make the “F-16s a more valuable counterterrorism asset that operates safely during day and night operations.” The notification said the modernized systems would also increase the accuracy of the F-16s’ support of Pakistani ground troops, lessening the risks of civilian casualties.

Many Congressional officials remain unconvinced. “Using F-16s this way is like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer,” said one senior Senate Democratic aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the current negotiations. It remains unclear whether any lawmaker will block or postpone the financing, and risk harming relations with Pakistan any further.

Even if approved, the upgraded F-16s would not be available until 2011, said one House aide who had been briefed on the issue, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, raising the question whether the funds could be spent on counterterrorism equipment that could be employed more quickly.

Wall Street Journal Online this morning wrote:Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded fire across the heavily armed Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight and into Tuesday in what the Indian army called the worst violation of a 2003 cease-fire agreement between the neighbors.

The night-long gunbattle came after one Indian soldier and four Pakistanis were killed Monday along the frontier that divides Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the Indian army said. No further casualties were reported Tuesday.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, but the frontier has been largely quiet since a 2003 cease-fire agreement, which formed the cornerstone of a peace process between the two countries.

"This is the biggest violation of the cease-fire in the last five years," said Lt. Col. Anil Kumar Mathur, an Indian army spokesman. "We've sought a meeting with the Pakistani army to protest the violation." By noon the gunfire had ended, Col. Mathur said.