Indian and Pakistani newspapers said today the threat of war was growing with New Delhi expected to retaliate for a deadly raid in Kashmir blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
"War clouds gather," read a headline in India's Asian Age. "We'll take action," said another in the Hindustan Times.
The Pakistani paper, Dawn, said the fear was that the Kashmir attack "could provide India with the pretext for an armed adventure that could trigger a full-scale war" between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Tuesday's raid on an army base in the disputed Himalayan Indian state of Kashmir killed 34 people, mainly wives and children of soldiers.
The two countries have massed a million men along their border since December in a confrontation over Kashmir, the trigger of two of their three wars.
That build-up in turn was triggered by a December suicide attack on India's parliament which New Delhi also blamed on Pakistani-based Kashmiri rebels.
India accuses Pakistan of fomenting rebellion against its rule in its only Muslim-majority state by arming and training militants and sending them across the heavily militarized border.
Pakistan denies the charge.
But the confrontation is entering a critical phase as the Himalayan snows melt, opening up mountain passes and infiltration routes.
Senior Indian security officials led by Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Defense Minister George Fernandes were to meet on Thursday to discuss how to retaliate, a Home Ministry official said.