UN staff send families home from Pakistan

Several hundred United Nations international staff in Pakistan have been ordered to send their families home because of increasing fears of a conflict between India and Pakistan, a diplomatic source said today.

‘‘For the time being, we are just saying as soon as possible,’’ said the source, in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

A similar order has been issued to UN staff in India, he said.

The spokesman refused to say how many UN international staff were based in Pakistan, but said the order would affect ‘‘several hundred’’.

Some of these workers are tied to programmes in Afghanistan, but have homes in Pakistan.

Until the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the induction of the interim regime of Hamid Karzai, the UN’s entire Afghan operation was based in Pakistan. Much of it still remains here.

With a million soldiers facing off along the tense border that separates India and Pakistan, the UN decided the possibility of a conflict between the two nuclear neighbours could not be ruled out and ordered dependents of its international workers home.

UN officials in Islamabad were scrambling to find flights for their dependents.

The United States yesterday announced a voluntary evacuation of its non-essential staff from India, also because of fears of a conflict on the troubled Asian subcontinent.

In Pakistan, most embassies had already issued evacuation orders.

The United States and Canada withdrew their non-essential personnel after a March 17 bombing of a church in Islamabad that killed four people, including two Americans.

The British mission evacuated about 150 staff last week after receiving ‘‘credible’’ information about a terrorist assault.

Earlier this month, a suicide bomber blew up a Pakistan Navy bus in southern Karachi, killing 14 people, including 11 French engineers who were helping Pakistan build a second Agosta submarine.

Since siding with the United States in its war on terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf has come under increasing pressure from militant extremists who have called for his overthrow.

But the pressure is also mounting from the US and other Western powers, which have said Musharraf has to do more to stop cross-border incursions into Indian-ruled Kashmir.

There have been indications from militant groups that Pakistani assistance has stopped.

Hamid Gul, the former chief of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, said: ‘‘Now the Pakistan army is being told to stop them from crossing.’’

He was sharply critical of Musharraf and warned that his actions would enrage Pakistanis.

A leaflet was being circulated in Pakistan calling on the Muslim faithful to unite against Musharraf.

US and other Western intelligence have said that al-Qaida and Pakistan-based militant groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harakat-ul Mujahedeen have close ties.

There are reports that these militant groups, which fight in Indian-ruled Kashmir, are working together to sabotage any attempt at peace between India and Pakistan.

‘‘They would like nothing better than a war between India and Pakistan,’’ said one former Pakistan military official.

‘‘That is a real fear that they will do something and Pakistan will be blamed and a war will begin. Musharraf has no control over these people any more. I don’t think anyone does. They have their own agenda.’’

Intelligence reports say al-Qaida have found safety in Pakistan’s sprawling cities, where like-minded Muslim clerics have given them refuge.