The new boys are fighting a tougher insurgency. Many are veterans of the Afghan war against the Soviets. They carry machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades, the latest communications equipment and, when cornered, will fight to the last bullet. Against the Indians, surrender is not a choice. Explains Lieut. General Krishna Pal, the army commander in Srinagar: "Even if the foreign militant puts his hands up, my policy is to shoot him. He has no reason to be here." This year, Pal's soldiers have killed nearly 170 foreigners, of whom 139 were Pakistani and 21 were Afghan.

Some Kashmiris view these newcomers with misgivings. Most of the territory's Muslims bear no communal hatred against their Hindu neighbors--only toward the Indian authorities--and many were sickened by massacres of Hindus carried out recently by these grim outsiders. Some zealots also try to enforce their puritanical views on the easy-going Kashmiris, with only partial success. An Islamic decree forbidding satellite television was issued recently by the militants, but then they settled for a ban on "corrupting" music channels, such as MTV, with their gyrating female dancers.

Strangely, the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have renewed Kashmiris' hope for a settlement. "If the Kashmir issue hadn't been there, what was the need for India and Pakistan to explode atomic bombs?" asks militant leader Shahbir Shah. "After the tests both nations are balanced, and it's clear that hostility will not resolve the problem." It's true that the atomic blasts sobered up leaders on both sides, but that hasn't made them more flexible. When Pakistani and Indian officials recently opened a round of talks, their first since the tests, the sessions on Kashmir ended in stalemate once again.

With reporting by Meenakshi Ganguly/Jammu and Maseeh Rahman/Srinagar

P A K I S T A N	I N D I A
ARMED FORCES Total Strength: 587,000 1998-99 defense budget: $3.2 billion ARMY General Headquarters: Rawalpindi Strength: 520,000 AIR FORCE Strength: 45,000 Fighter/Attack Aircraft: 310 Headquarters: Chaklala NAVY Headquarters: Islamabad Strength: 22,000 Submarines: 6 Destroyers: 3 Frigates: 8 Missile-armed Fast Craft: 9	ARMED FORCES Total Strength: 1,135,000 1998-99 defense budget: $9.8 billion ARMY General Headquarters: New Delhi Strength: 980,000 AIR FORCE Strength: 110,000 Fighter/Attack Aircraft: 745 Headquarters: New Delhi NAVY Headquarters: New Delhi Strength: 45,000 Submarines: 17 Aircraft carrier: 1 Destroyers: 6 Frigates: 13 Corvettes: 19 Missile-armed Fast Craft: 6

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