NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, 13 June — US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that Al-Qaeda militants might be operating in Kashmir and offered India the use of US ground sensors to monitor the tense border with Pakistan. Rumsfeld made the comments before he left New Delhi for Islamabad where he will meet with President Parvez Musharraf today.

Rumsfeld will also hold talks with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen. Abdul Aziz, and likely ask Pakistan not to shift troops from its western border with Afghanistan to the eastern border.

“I have seen indications that there in fact are Al-Qaeda operating in the area...near the Line of Control” dividing disputed Kashmir, Rumsfeld told reporters in New Delhi after talks with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. “I do not have hard evidence of precisely how many, or who, or where,” added Rumsfeld, who had earlier warned that Al-Qaeda might try to provoke a war between India and Pakistan.

Aside from Vajpayee, Rumsfeld met with National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, Defense Minister George Fernandes and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. They discussed the possibility of using US ground sensors in Kashmir to monitor and assess the movement of fighters across the Line of Control, Rumsfeld said. “Needless to say the goal is to see that there is no infiltration across the Line of Control,” he said.

Rumsfeld suggested getting US, British, Indian and Pakistani experts together to explore the available technologies, said a senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Rumsfeld said the situation in the region was still tense, despite India on Monday saying there had been a decrease in infiltration into Kashmir and lifting a six-month ban on Pakistani flights over its territories. New Delhi followed up the gesture on Tuesday by recalling warships that had been patrolling near Pakistani waters and also gave notice it was in the process of naming a new high commissioner (ambassador) to Pakistan.

But Islamabad has described the Indian response as inadequate and called for more substantive measures to be taken to defuse the crisis that has seen about a million soldiers deployed by both sides on their frontiers. “The Indian decisions do not address the main causes of tension,” a Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement said.

“We trust that the Indian government will soon announce further steps leading to the resumption of a meaningful dialogue on disputes between the two countries, especially the core issue of Kashmir.”

Rumsfeld said India had taken constructive steps, but that Washington was anxious to see tensions lowered further. “The president of the United States, Secretary (of State Colin) Powell are anxious to see that the tensions that exist between India and Pakistan are lowered.”

On the frontier, Indian and Pakistani troops traded heavy artillery fire. The Indian Defense Ministry said that five Pakistani troops had either been killed or wounded in firing on Tuesday on the high altitude Siachen Glacier.

Just to the south of Kashmir, Pakistani officials in the border town of Sialkot said a paramilitary ranger was seriously wounded in Indian firing.