By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 28 1999; Page A01

Pakistan's armed forces said today that they had shot down two Indian fighter jets over the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir, the Himalayan region claimed by both countries, marking a sharp escalation of military tensions between the world's two newest nuclear powers.

The incident aroused long-standing fears in foreign capitals that the two countries' competing claims to Kashmir could spark a larger conflict -- fears that heightened considerably when both tested nuclear weapons last May. India and Pakistan -- rivals since their countries were carved out of British colonial India in 1947 -- have fought two brief wars over Kashmir and frequently trade artillery and small-arms fire across the so-called line of control that divides the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled portions of the province.

On Wednesday, India began launching airstrikes against hundreds of Muslim guerrillas who New Delhi said had infiltrated its portion of Kashmir from Pakistan -- its first use of air power in the regional hot spot since Indian and Pakistani forces clashed there in 1971. And despite assurances from officials on both sides that the airstrikes would not spark cross-border conflict, Pakistani officials said today that they had shot down two Indian MiGs that had strayed four to five miles across the line of control.

Military authorities in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, said surface-to-air missiles downed the two planes about 45 miles south of this village in the Himalayan foothills. One pilot was in custody and the second was killed, they said. India confirmed the loss of two aircraft but insisted that the planes had been flying on its side of the Kashmir line and that only one was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, news services reported from New Delhi. The other was disabled by mechanical failure, and the pilot had to eject over hostile terrain, said Air Vice Marshal S.K. Malik, a defense spokesman.

In Islamabad, Pakistani Information Minister Mushahid Hussain said: "This is a threat to peace and regional stability. Kashmir has been the natural flash point" between India and Pakistan, "and now it has the potential to become a nuclear flash point as well."

India's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "the present situation has been created entirely because of Pakistan's provocative activities. Pakistan should realize that such foolhardy ventures against India will not succeed."

But India's national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, tempered the strong remarks, saying in a television interview that "we don't think the situation will escalate into a general war. There's no need for any panic at all. When we went in for airstrikes, we went in knowing that there could be damage to our aircraft."

[Early Friday, India dispatched Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to the region, the private STAR TV news channel said. The Russian-made Sukhois are faster and have better firepower than the MiGs. STAR did not specify how many Sukhois were deployed.]

Indian officials said that they have no aggressive intentions against Pakistan and that their recent airstrikes and ground operations in Indian-controlled Kashmir are aimed only at driving out what they describe as Pakistani-backed insurgents. But Pakistani officials said the position of the MiGs when they were shot down proves that India has wider ambitions. They said India may seek to push back Pakistani forces defending their side of the 450-mile line of control.

"We are still in a defensive mode, and we do not want the situation to escalate, but there is definitely a fear that this could start snowballing," said Brig. Rashid Qureshi, a spokesman for the Pakistani military. "When the Indians start overflying and bombing Pakistani territory, we are constrained to take appropriate action."

An Indian military official in New Delhi said today that its planes had dropped no bombs in the region and that thus there was "absolutely no chance" any fell in Pakistan.

In Washington, Michael Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said: "We are concerned about the rising escalation of violence in Kashmir. We have appealed to the governments in both India and Pakistan to abide by the terms of the Lahore accords." The prime ministers of the two nations met in Lahore, Pakistan, in February and agreed to work together to solve their 50-year dispute over Kashmir peacefully.

So far, the Clinton administration has yet to send a senior State Department envoy to either capital, the Reuters news agency reported. But in Washington, Assistant Secretary of State Karl F. Inderfurth summoned the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors to separate meetings to express U.S. concerns. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who spearheaded efforts to bring Indian and Pakistani officials together in Lahore, is busy leading the U.S. effort to get Russia to mediate a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Kosovo.

The United States, Britain, Russia, China and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged restraint by both nations, news services reported, with Moscow asserting that the situation demonstrates that NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia had set a dangerous precedent in international relations.

For much of the past decade, the long-standing tensions over Kashmir have been further strained by an uprising by separatist Muslim rebels in the Indian portion of Kashmir -- Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state. India accuses predominantly Muslim Pakistan of backing the rebellion by infiltrating guerrillas into Jammu and Kashmir to support the rebels. Pakistan denies giving the rebellion anything but moral support.

India launched its airstrikes Wednesday in what Indian officials called a concerted attempt to dislodge 400 to 600 Pakistani and Afghan guerrillas who they said had taken up positions in high mountain ridges of the Kargil region of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The air raids followed a nearly three-week counterinsurgency operation by thousands of Indian troops that failed to drive out the infiltrators and was met by artillery fire from Pakistan. At least 200 combatants on both sides are said to have been killed in the recent clashes.

"Under the guise of sorting out the [guerrillas], India has concentrated 10,000 to 15,000 troops and 60 to 70 planes in the region," Pakistan's Qureshi said. "It seems like overkill just to sort out a few hundred [rebels]. We are now alerted that they have some bigger design."